My Porcelain Romance
by Isabel5
Summary: Puck/Rachel. Just because practically every important moment in Rachel and Puck's relationship happened in a bathroom, doesn't make their story any less epic.  This is the story of their porcelain romance.
1. Chapter 1

Rachel stood in the bathroom doorway and smiled at her best friend. Santana was pacing back and forth, barefoot on the tile floor, her hair pulled back into a messy bun, spit-up stains on her t-shirt. She was smiling down at the little bundle in her arms and singing softly. Rachel felt strong arms slide around her waist and a chin rest on her shoulder.

"What's going on?" Puck whispered in Rachel's ear, pulling her back against his chest and she sagged, exhausted.

"Shhh." Rachel put a finger to his lips but it was too late; Santana froze and turned around.

"How long have you been there?" she asked quietly.

"Not long," Rachel assured her. "What were you singing?"

"_Hey Jude_," Santana smirked as Rachel slipped out of Puck's arms to walk further into the bathroom. She pushed the blanket aside a bit and looked down into the beautiful face of her son.

"Hey, baby. Were you good for your Aunt Santana?" Rachel stroked her finger down his cheek and he turned his head, opening his mouth a bit before closing it again.

"He was good for the most part," Santana said. "Super gassy again though. And I can't get him to sleep."

"The formula's not working," Rachel said through a yawn. "We're gonna have to switch him to Nutramigen."

"I'll pick some up in the morning," Puck said and Rachel turned around to see him sliding into the bathtub with a relaxed sigh as he leaned against the back and stretched out his legs.

"So how was it? First night away from the baby?" Santana asked.

"It was hard," Rachel bit her lip. "Noah had to confiscate my phone so I didn't text you every five minutes."

"Thank you for that," Santana smiled over at Puck and he saluted her a '_you're welcome'_.

Santana stared at Rachel for a minute and Rachel raised her eyebrows. "What?"

"Oh my God," Santana said in exasperation. "Did you win?"

"Oh!" Rachel said, finally understanding before breaking out into a huge grin. "Was there ever any doubt."

"Seriously?" Santana smiled and looped her free arm around Rachel's neck. "B, that's fuc…freakin' awesome," she corrected herself quickly. She and Puck had both been making a conscious effort not to curse so much around the baby. He didn't understand them yet but if they didn't start now when he couldn't understand them, it would be too late by the time he did.

"Yeah, I was pretty excited."

"Seriously, B. Your first Tony." Santana smiled. "Okay, lemme see. I want to hold it and pretend like it's mine."

"You don't actually get to bring it home," Rachel laughed. "They use the same one over and over again for the awards show and then they mail yours to you after they engrave it. It should be here in three to six weeks."

"That fucking sucks," Santana said annoyed. So the cursing was a work in progress, big deal.

"Whatever." Rachel shrugged it off.

"Don't even try to pretend like you don't care," Puck snorted. "You should have seen the fit she pitched when they took it away from her. It was hilarious."

"Shut up," Rachel glared at her husband and walked over to slap him in the back of the head, but he grabbed her wrist and pulled her into the tub with him, kissing her soundly before she could protest. With a contented smile, she snuggled up into his lap. "Okay so maybe I was a bit vocal about my disappointment but honestly, there should have been a more efficient system in place."

"You're just mad you didn't get to walk home down the streets of New York waving your Tony in everyone's faces."

"Well, what other reason is there to _have_ a Tony?" Rachel protested. They were all quiet for a second as she yawned again. "I'm so exhausted," she complained, closing her eyes and burrowing deeper into Puck's embrace. "Like seriously, I could fall asleep right here," she paused then opened her eyes as if realizing for the first time where she was. "Why are we in the bathroom?"

"Acoustics," Santana explained.

"Why do I feel like we've spent the better part of our lives in the bathroom?" Rachel frowned.

"Well, probably because we have," Puck told her with a chuckle, just realizing something. Rachel tilted her head up to look at him. "We literally have spent the _better parts_ of our lives in the bathroom."

"What are you talking about?" Rachel asked, not sure if Puck was just being Puck or if she was just too tired to understand what he was saying.

"Huh, he's right," Santana said, lowering the toilet seat lid and sitting down, the baby still in her arms.

"Pretty much every important moment in our relationship has happened in a bathroom," Puck explained to Rachel.

She sat up a bit to look her husband in the eye trying to figure out if he was messing with her. "That can't possibly be true?" Rachel frowned, unsure, and turned to Santana. "Can it?"

"Oh, it's true. Hey little one, you want to hear a bedtime story?" Santana smiled and looked down at the baby in her arms. "It's the story of how your parents became friends and then fell in love, and eventually had you. I think I'm going to call it…'My Porcelain Romance'."

"Please remind me never to let Santana write my biography," Rachel snorted but snuggled deeper in Puck's chest to listen to the story.

**:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::**

**October 2009 - Sophomore Year – High School**

"You're pretty good at this," Puck looked up at Rachel as she ran her fingers through his hair, rinsing out the ice and corn syrup.

"I've had a lot of practice," she chuckled. "You're actually a lot luckier than me and Quinn. Your head is shaved." He smiled and she grabbed the towel hanging over the bathroom stall.

"I'm really sorry I ever did this to you," Puck told her honestly.

"It's okay," she said, tucking her hair behind her ear as she perched herself on his leg.

"No, it isn't," Puck lifted his head up, took the towel from her and slid his hand onto her hip. "No one deserves this feeling. You know what the worst part is? It's not the burning in your eyes or the way the slushie drips all the way into your underpants, it's the humiliation." Rachel nodded sadly and looked down away from him. "I feel like I could burst into tears at any moment." He hated himself for what he was about to say but he didn't really see any other option. "Rachel, I'm sorry but today when the clock chimes three thirty—"

"You're choosing football over Glee which probably means we can't be together anymore," she finished for him.

"Yes. Damn, I feel like such a bad Jew," he said and he was only halfway kidding.

Rachel just smiled at him and kissed him softly on his forehead. Then she stood up, grabbed her raincoat and walked out of the bathroom. Puck watched her go and he got this feeling that watching Rachel walk away from him was probably going to be the most painful thing he ever experienced and he never wanted to do it again.

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**February 2011 – Junior Year – High School**

Rachel was the last one to leave Figgin's office, almost as if she was in a daze, and he wasn't sure if it's because they didn't get expelled or if it was because Brittany fucking threw up on her. When she got to the hallway, all the other Gleeks were standing there glaring at her and it was fucked up how they didn't even have to say anything but the message was still loud and clear: they blamed her. Puck snorted because they knew just as much as he did that it was all their faults. Yeah, she brought that nasty purple punch shit but they didn't have to drink it.

Quinn and Santana grabbed Brittany and pulled her away, offering Rachel one last glare for good measure. The others filed out of the hallway until it was just Rachel and Finn and him. Finn opened his mouth and the hopeful look on Rachel's face made _Puck_ want to puke. But Finn just closed his mouth and shook his head before walking away. Rachel's whole face fell and Puck just wanted to punch Finn in the face.

He could tell she was trying not to cry and the whole thing was made worse by the fact that she still had chunks of something in her hair and her clothes were drenched in purple puke. He groaned and pushed himself off the locker, grabbing her arm and spurring her into movement. "Come on, Berry," he said, and she followed him wordlessly down the hall. He stopped at his locker and pulled a bag out before dragging her into the nearest bathroom. Grabbing the chair by the door, he moved it under the sink and then sat her ass down in it. She smiled softly up at him as he turned the water on and made her lean back.

"This feels vaguely familiar," Rachel said softly and he smiled.

"Yeah, I guess I owed you or whatever," Puck shrugged, using one hand to direct the water onto her head and the other to run his fingers through her hair to dislodge any stray bits. "This isn't you, Berry. This drunk party girl."

"I know," she whispered.

"Then what the fuck are you doing?" Puck asked.

"Language, Noah," Rachel smiled up at him and he rolled his eyes.

"It's about Finn, isn't it?" he asked her.

"You're the one who wanted me to have the party. You're the one who wanted to break into the liquor cabinet." Rachel reminded him.

"Yeah and then you went a little nuts and kissed a gay kid and turned into this crazed purple punch pusher," Puck pointed out.

"They didn't have to drink it," Rachel whispered, echoing his own thoughts back at him, and sat up. Puck turned off the faucet and grabbed a towel from his bag, tossing it to her. "He called me pathetic," Rachel whispered and Puck clenched his fist.

"He actually fucking told you that?" Puck asked her.

"He was always telling me while we were dating that I needed to loosen up and act like a normal teenager and then I have a party, like a normal teenager, and a few drinks, like a normal teenager, and he calls me pathetic." Rachel stood up and rubbed her hair with the towel. "And it hurt but then I drank more and it didn't hurt anymore."

He dug through his bag until he found what he was looking for and held out his wrinkled baseball practice t-shirt to her. Rachel hesitated and he rolled his eyes, "It's clean or whatever, it's just been in there since last summer. More importantly, it's not covered in puke."

"Thanks," Rachel smiled and took the shirt, moving into one of the stalls to change.

Puck leaned against the stall and winced as Rachel hung her puke covered shirt over the door for him. He grabbed it with two fingers then threw it in the general direction of the trash can cause he was pretty sure she didn't want that back. "Look, I know this is going to sound like complete and utter bullshit coming from me of all people but alcohol is not the answer."

"I know," Rachel sighed and walked out of the stall. His shirt hung down to the middle of her thigh and the neck was so wide it grazed the tops of her boobs and he could see a bit of her lace bra poking out.

"Finn's the pathetic one," Puck shoved his hands in his pockets. "Look, he kisses Quinn when she's with Sam which is fucked on, like, so many levels 'cause what? All of a sudden he forgives her for _sleeping_ with me but he dumps you for _kissing_ me? That doesn't even count as cheating. Kissing me is just the inevitable outcome of living in Lima. Seriously, like everyone does it and it doesn't mean anything. He had you and he let you go," Puck shook his head. "Pathetic."

"Thank you," Rachel smiled at him. "And thanks for the shirt."

"Whatever. Like I said, I owed you." He grabbed his bag and reached over her head, opening the door and holding it open for her. She ducked under her his arm then stopped and turned around.

"Noah, every time I've kissed you," she bit her lip, "It meant something." Before he could fully process her words, she pushed herself up on tiptoe and pressed a quick kiss to his lips before walking away. And watching Rachel Berry walk away – still didn't get any easier.

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**August 2012 – Summer Before College**

There was one more week of summer. That's it, one more week and then college and then the real world and all Puck really wanted to do was party but at the same time the last thing he wanted to do was _be_ at a party. The music was too loud, the people were too annoying and the beer was too warm. He was considering just ditching when someone called his name.

"Noah!" Rachel called out, her voice easily rising above the music and the noise of all the people surrounding him in the middle of Mike's kitchen. He turned his head to see Rachel stumbling through the crowd, headed straight for him. She looked genuinely excited to see him which he thought was cute because they'd literally just seen each other like two hours ago at Temple.

"Hey," he smirked at her and she tripped over the little step between the living room and the kitchen so he reached out and caught her.

"Hey," she smiled up at him.

"Jesus fuck Berry," Santana said appearing at his side. "I turned around for two seconds and you were fucking gone."

"I found Noah!" she said, pushing herself to her feet and twisting out of his arms. "See. Noah!"

"Yeah, I see," Santana chuckled a bit.

"Was I lost?" Puck raised his eyebrows and Santana rolled her eyes.

"She's been hunting down everyone, wanted to have one last talk or whatever, like we'll never see each other again."

"I'm leaving on Monday for New York," she pointed out and then turned around to the rest of the party and raised her hands in the air and screamed, "New York!" Everyone cheered and she turned back to Puck a huge smile on her face.

"Yeah, we know," Puck laughed. "You've only told us that like at least once a day all summer."

"Look, I need a break, for just like five minutes," Santana said. "I've been chasing her around all night and I'm far too sober for this."

"I knew there was something different about you. I thought maybe you were trying something new with your hair." Puck laughed. "Isn't it usually the other way around?"

"We made a deal, I stay sober tonight to watch over her while she's drunk and she stays sober for pretty much every party freshman year to watch over me." Santana smirked.

"That sounds like a very fair trade," Puck nodded. He wasn't sure how the hell the world had turned upside down and inside out to accommodate Rachel Berry and Santana Lopez as roommates. But they both got into NYU and San shrugged and said something about the bitch you know versus the bitch you don't.

"Yeah, except she's seriously exhausting." Santana sighed, eyeing the beer in Puck's hand. He pulled it away from her quickly.

"She's seriously right here," Rachel frowned at them.

"You want me to take her off your hands for a while?" Puck asked, sipping his beer.

"Please," Santana begged. "Rach, Puck's gonna watch you for a few minutes, okay? I'll be right back."

"It's fine," Rachel waved her off. "Noah will take excellent care of me."

"You bet I will, Berry," Puck winked at her and Santana didn't have to be told twice.

"Oh! Party mix," Rachel said excitedly and Puck slipped a finger in one of her belt loops, holding her in place as she tried to reach for the bowl on the counter. She turned and frowned at him and he smirked.

"Not party mix," Puck shook his head at her. "I'm pretty sure that's potpourri."

"Oh," Rachel sighed and turned around. "Whatever. I need to talk to you anyway."

"I'm not really into teary goodbyes," Puck told her.

"Good, 'cause that's not what I want to talk to you about." She smiled at him. "We're friends, aren't we?"

"Yeah," he said cautiously. Conversations that started out like that never ended well for him.

"'Cause you said before we weren't friends but that was almost two years ago and I think we've grown closer since then—"

"We're fucking friends, Berry," Puck interrupted her.

"Right," she confirmed with a cute little nod. "That's good. So friends do friends favors, don't they?" She looked up at him from under her eyelashes and Puck swallowed hard because this was definitely not going to end well for him.

"I guess. I mean, it depends on the favor." Puck said.

"Well, I need a favor from you," Rachel said, bringing her hands up to play with one of the buttons on his shirt.

"I kinda got that much," Puck smirked.

"You see, I've decided that it would not be beneficial for me to go off to college with my virginity intact." Puck froze, the beer bottle halfway to his lips. She pulled the bottle from his fingers and took a long sip. "And I was thinking that you could help me with that," Rachel finished.

"And when you say 'help you', you mean?"

"I mean," she slid her hand up around the back of his neck and pulled his face down to hers. She smiled when he sucked in his breath and then turned to whisper in his ear. "I want you to fuck me." She pulled back and looked up at him.

"How drunk are you?" he asked her.

"Not very," she shrugged and he narrowed his eyes. "Drunk enough to ask you, not so drunk that I don't know what I'm asking you."

"This is-fuck Berry," Puck ran a hand over his head. "This is not…your first time shouldn't be like this. In the middle of some random party at someone else's house, in someone else's bed. It should be fucking special or whatever."

"It will be 'fucking special' because it'll be with you," she told him seriously and he had to bite his lip because Rachel Berry just said 'fuck' twice in like two minutes. "Noah, I didn't just decide this. I've been thinking about this all summer, weighing the pros and cons and this is what I want. I trust you, you can't deny there's always been a…physical attraction between us, I know that you'll make it good for me, and you won't make a big deal about it." Puck sighed, he honestly couldn't fault her logic. "Unless you don't want me," her face fell and he groaned.

He grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her in for a kiss. It had been almost a year since he'd kissed her last and it was just as good as he remembered. He could hear her voice in his head (_Every time I've kissed you, it meant something). _She swiped her tongue along his bottom lip and he groaned, pulling away from her.

"I'm giving you one chance to back out. If you want this, we'll do it, but if you don't, you tell me now. Right fucking now," he said.

"I want this," Rachel assured him and he took his beer from her, setting it on the counter, before sliding his hand in hers and walking away.

He pulled her up the stairs, the only thing on his mind the fact that he was about to have sex with Rachel Berry. He opened up the first door on the landing and it was shut in his face. Puck shook his head and pulled her further down the hall, knocking this time. "Occupied!" someone screamed from inside.

"Fuck," Puck grunted and reached for the last bedroom door but the second his hand hit the knob, they heard a crash from inside followed by a moan and he pulled his hand away. "Oh, come on!"

"Noah," Rachel tugged on his arm and nodded at the door behind him.

"That's a bathroom," he sighed. She opened the door and looked in.

"It's empty," she shrugged and he smiled at her, dragging her into the bathroom. He closed the door and when he turned around, Rachel had pulled herself up onto the countertop, her feet swing against the cabinet. "Hey," she smiled at him.

"Hey," he smiled back and walked up to her, nudging her knees open with his hip so he could stand between her legs.

"I'm not exactly sure what I'm meant to be doing here." The look on her face was slightly more annoyed than it was nervous and for that, Puck smiled. Rachel liked to know things. He felt a bit of a rush knowing that he had the upper hand here, something he rarely did where Rachel was concerned. He reached out and slid his fingers onto her hips, gripping them firmly yet gently before pulling her forward a bit, balancing her on the edge of the counter.

"Last chance, are you sure you want to do this?" Puck asked her, looking hopefully in her eyes. She nodded and smiled at him, bringing one hand to rest on his shoulder. Her other hand brushed the longer strands of hair off his forehead, something his mom had been bugging him about all summer. Puck closed his eyes, leaning into her touch as her hand moved from his forehead to his cheek, her thumb tracing the line of his cheek bone before drifting further down and sliding along his lips.

Unable to stop himself, Puck placed a soft kiss on her thumb and she froze for a second. She continued her journey south along the line of his jaw before her hand finally settled, her fingers tangled absentmindedly in the hair at the nape of his neck.

"Rachel…" Puck pleaded with her without really understanding why. Instead of answering, she simply pulled his neck forward and kissed him softly.

It didn't take long for the kiss to go from soft to urgent and then her hands were on his belt buckle and he was pulling her shirt over her head. His eyes widened when he saw that she had no bra on and his head dipped quickly to her chest, pulling one of her nipples in his mouth. She shoved his pants down around his ankles so he could kick them off before yanking her shorts off. "Your shirt," she panted, running her hands under the material, her fingernails grazing down his abs and he pulled away from her for a moment to grab his shirt and pull it off.

She ran her hands back down over her bare chest, her fingers sliding along the top edge of his boxers and then she gripped them and pulled the waist band out just a bit. Puck watched as she looked down and he laughed a bit. "What are you doing?"

"I'm…" She seemed confused for a second then smiled. "Just having a peek." A red blush crept up her cheeks and he smirked.

"Having a peek?" he asked incredulously and she just shrugged.

"Well, you're about to…and I just wanted to see…I mean, it's going to go…"

"Oh for fuck's sake." Puck shoved his boxers to the ground and held his hands out. Rachel looked down. Puck watched her eyes widen and saw her cheeks get even redder, which was awesome ,but he seemed to grow steadily more uneasy as she continued to just stare. "Rachel?"

She swallowed hard and looked up at him. "It's rather large." Her voice was slightly breathless.

"Not so large." Puck said trying to calm her nerves and she barked out a laugh. "What?"

"Nothing." She assured him. "It's just, I never thought I'd hear a guy say that."

Puck glared at her as she chuckled. "Cute. I was just trying to make you feel better."

"I know." Her laughter died down suddenly and it was serious again. He leaned his forehead against hers, running his fingers up and down her arms lightly. He kissed her again and they could tell immediately the intent had changed. The whole atmosphere had changed. Puck put his hands on Rachel's bare hip and rubbed his thumb along the bone before pulling her up against him. When they touched, skin to skin, chest to hips, she moaned.

"Okay?" he whispered against her collarbone.

"Yeah," she assured him as one of his hands slid up from her hip to cup her bare breast, his thumb brushing lightly over her nipple.

"Okay?" he asked again.

She nodded, not trusting herself to actually talk at the moment. He'd take it though, moving his mouth back up to hers, kissing her deeply, almost lazily as the other hand on her hip moved down her leg. He squeezed her knee and ran his hand back up the inside of her thigh and his fingers brushed softly against her slit. She shivered at the contact and he smiled against her lips, sliding one finger into her and her hips jerked forward.

"Okay?" he asked again as he worked his finger in and out.

"Would you please stop asking me that?" she panted but smiled up at him.

"Sure." Puck smiled, adding a second finger and making her gasp as her forehead dropped to his shoulder.

"God," she groaned, trailing kisses up his neck and Puck couldn't help but echo that thought in his own head. He added one more finger, going even deeper this time and curling just so. He knew when he hit the right spot because Rachel's legs tightened around his waist and she threw her head back. "Noah," she panted.

The sound of his name falling off her lips like that hit him hard and went straight to his dick. Quickly, he pulled his fingers out so he could get himself under control or this whole thing would be over before it even had a chance to begin.

"Condom?" Rachel whispered breaking through the haze of lust he found himself in and he nodded, reaching down and grabbing it out of his wallet. He tore the packet with his teeth and he could feel his hands shaking a bit as she watched him roll the condom on, something about her watching was both hot and nerve-wracking.

He lifted his head, saw her looking at him with a smile and her head tilted to the side, and he couldn't help but drop a kiss to her forehead. Her eyes fluttered closed so he turned to them, kissing the right then the left. He moved on to her nose, then the corner of her mouth and when she turned her head to face him, he smiled, kissing her softly.

"Ready?" he asked; she nodded. He guided himself into her, just the tip and she gasped and Puck had to bite his tongue to stop himself asking her if she was okay. "This is going to hurt," he warned her

She didn't say anything, just nodded as he pressed in further, slowly sinking himself deeper and deeper inside of her. She had lasted longer than Puck thought she would but eventually, she cried out and he had no illusions that it was a cry of pleasure.

He stopped immediately, frozen in space and time as both their breaths came fast and painful and that's when he realized her eyes were screwed shut tightly. "Rach, look at me." She shook her head and Puck grabbed her face and tilted it toward him. "Open your eyes." She stared straight at him and he could see the water filling her eyes. "Look at me okay," he murmured softly, the rumble in his chest just as soothing as the way he refused to turn away from her. "Just look at me." She nodded and he started to move again, slowly, taking his cues from her face.

He stopped again when he saw her bite her lip and didn't move again until she nodded. The shake of her head caused her hips to jump slightly and the sensation was so unexpected that Puck thrust forcefully the rest of the way before he could even think about what he was doing. She cried out, a half-choked sob and he grabbed her face with both hands. "I'm sorry," he murmured as he kissed her softly, trying to wrench the pain from her through her mouth. "I'm sorry, I didn't…fuck, I'm sorry." Her tears fell freely now and he wiped them away as fast as he could. "I'm sorry." He leaned his forehead on hers and closed his eyes, mumbling a constant apology.

After a minute, her breathing evened out. "It's okay." She assured him, bring her hands up to embrace him, rubbing his back soothingly. "It's fine, I'm fine." She smiled and kissed his temple. She shifted her hips and he gripped at her waist.

"Don't." His voice was strained. She was so tight and it felt so good but if she moved, he was going to rail her and he wasn't going to hurt her again. "Just wait a second."

"Yeah. okay." She smiled.

After another minute, he trusted himself enough to move again. Slowly he got into a rhythm, lifting his head to look into Rachel's eyes again. "I'm okay," she kept saying over and over again and he sped up, going faster and faster, his breathing out of control. It took him a minute to realize that she was meeting him thrust for thrust, that she was making these little moans in the back of her throat and they weren't moans of pain.

He looked up and saw her head tilted back, her mouth open and nothing had ever been hotter. He was like two seconds from coming and he could tell she was close. too. She'd told him she trusted him to make it good for her so he was going to make sure he did just that. He slipped his hand in between them, sliding his finger along her, putting just the right amount of pressure in just the right spot and she cried out, her whole body clenching around him, "Noah!" she panted again and that was all it took, he was done.

She collapsed against him, her head falling on his shoulder and he wrapped his arms around, holding her tight as she got her breathing under control. "Thanks," she said into his shoulder and he scoffed.

"You're welcome," he told her. "You okay?"

She nodded. "It doesn't really hurt anymore but I'm not sure I can stand just yet." She blushed and Puck couldn't help but smirk because yeah, he was a fucking stud.

"Stay right there," he told her, kissing her forehead and pulling out of her. She actually pouted at the loss of him and his smirk got even bigger as he peeled the condom off and dropped it in the toilet, thinking of all the things he could do to her when he finally got her to a bed. He grabbed a handful of toilet paper and brought it back to Rachel, cleaning her up gently before flushing it.

He was about to ask her if she wanted to maybe get out of there, go down to the lake or something when the door was flung open and he saw Santana in the doorway. "Are you fucking kidding me?" she shrieked at them and he at least had the sense of mind to cover his junk. "Five minutes, I leave you alone for five minutes?"

"Trust me that was way longer than five minutes," Rachel mumbled under her breath and Puck couldn't help but laugh.

Santana stormed into the bathroom and slapped Puck in the back of the head. "I trusted you to take care of her," she snapped.

"Oh, he took care of me," Rachel mumbled sleepily.

Santana glared and smacked Puck again. "Stop hitting me," he said rubbing the back of his head. "She's the one saying that shit."

"Yeah well she's drunk, you know better," Santana said. "Rachel get dressed, we're leaving."

Rachel slid off the counter and gathered up her clothes, pulling them on quietly. "I'm ready," she told Santana as she zipped up her skirt and Santana offered Puck one last glare before turning to the door.

"Thank you Noah, that was…exactly what I wanted."

"Anytime," Puck winked at her before Santana stormed back in the bathroom and smacked him one last time for good measure.

"Stay away from her," she said and then stormed off. Puck smirked, pulling on his boxers then his jeans. He figured now would be the wrong time to mention that he'd been on the waiting list for NYU all summer and he just got the notice this morning that he was in. He was just going to surprise them. And maybe then Rachel would stop walking away from him.

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**November 2012 – Freshman Year - College**

Rachel forced herself to swallow another sip of vodka, thankful that she didn't have a gag reflex as the liquid burned its way down her throat. She really hated the stuff, preferring wine or even beer, but she'd found it under Santana's bed and as it was 10 in the morning, and she was underage, she figured it was the best she could do on such short notice.

She heard the door to their dorm room open and panicked, sinking down further in the bathtub as Santana moved around the bedroom. The two girls had gotten much closer since moving to New York. Rachel would even go so far as to say they were friends, pretty good friends actually, but not so good that Santana wouldn't go crazy on her for stealing her vodka.

Rachel grabbed the shower curtain and pulled it tight, making sure that she wasn't visible. She was glad now that she'd decided to hide in the bathtub. It had seemed so wrong, underage drinking right in the middle of the dorm room so she'd come in the bathroom and sat on the toilet, but then that had seemed so…pathetic, so she climbed in the tub and got comfortable. She'd actually started to relax, at least until Santana came home and ruined everything. She was supposed to be in class right now. Granted, so was Rachel.

She heard the door to the bathroom open and she sucked in a deep breath, making sure to keep herself completely still, to keep her breathing quiet and shallow. She heard the toilet seat lift up, a zipper being pulled down, the sound of someone sitting and then a sigh of pleasure – but not Santana's sigh of pleasure – this was a distinctly manly sigh of pleasure. Rachel froze. There was a man in her dorm room, in her bathroom, _on her toilet._ She didn't know what to do. She'd never imagined a scenario like this before. What was the proper protocol? Did she announce herself? Did she stay quiet? Did she try and slip her phone out of her pocket and dial 911? If she talked though, he'd know she was there. Maybe she could text them? Did 911 even accept text messages? Rachel didn't know. But she could text Santana and tell Santana to call 911. That was an excellent plan.

Rachel slowly and carefully pulled her phone from her pocket, making sure to silence it before opening her texting application. She quickly selected Santana's name and started typing.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Santana felt her phone buzz in her pocket and sighed, pulling it out and seeing Rachel's name flash on her screen. She opened the message and nearly swallowed her tongue trying not to laugh.

_**Berry*: **__EMERGENCY! Was hiding in bathtub when strange man entered bathroom. Is currently ON OUR TOILET. Could be crazed killer. Currently fear for my life. Please contact police immediately. _

Santana typed back quickly and set the phone on her desk, biting her lip because seriously, she wanted to laugh so bad, she was almost crying. She paused for a second before picking up the phone and sending out another text.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Rachel let out a breath when she saw Santana's reply pop up on her phone's screen.

_**HBIC: **__First of all, what the fuck kind of killer uses the victim's bathroom before killing people? Second of all: chill out. It's probably just Puckerman. He uses our toilet from time to time. Third of all, what were you doing hiding in the bathtub?_

Rachel relaxed only slightly taking deep breaths in and out and then she heard a beep coming from the phone of the man who might possibly be Noah. She gathered up all her courage, curled her hands around the side of the shower curtain and pulled it back a bit. She peeked out quickly and then slumped in relief to see that it was none other than Noah Puckerman, sitting on her toilet, a spoon in one hand and his phone in the other.

Grabbing her phone, she let the curtain close again and typed out an angry reply to Santana.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Noah licked the spoon and wrinkled his nose in disgust at the flavor but stuck it back into the green container anyway for another bite. His phone beeped, signaling a new text message so he popped the spoon back in his mouth, set the container on the counter and then bent over to dig his phone out of his pants pockets. He saw Santana's name flash on his screen and rolled his eyes. She fucking knew this was his bathroom time so she'd better have a pretty good reason to disrupt him.

_**Satan:**__So just a heads up or whatever, but Berry's hiding in the fucking bathtub. She thinks you're some crazy psycho killer and she's like two seconds from calling the cops on your ass._

Puck froze, pulling the spoon from his mouth slowly and looking over to at the shower curtain. He couldn't see anyone through the material and it would totally be just like San to try and pull some stupid ass shit like this on him. He sent her a quick text because he was legit not going to fall for that shit. But, on the other hand, "Berry?" Puck said slowly, feeling like a fucking idiot.

"Noah?" Rachel called back and he closed his eyes in complete and utter mortification before yanking his pants up and grabbing onto the shower curtain. He pulled it back and looked down to see her lying in the tub, her cell phone in her right hand a bottle of vodka in her left. She was staring up at him with the weirdest fucking expression on her face and the longer she looked at him, the redder her cheeks got. "Hi," she whispered.

"Hi," he said back for lack of anything better to say before closing the toilet lid and sitting back down.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Santana was tapping her foot impatiently as she stared at her phone. It beeped twice, one right after the other, and she grabbed it quickly. Puck's text was concise and to the point.

_**Puckerman: **__Fuck you._

He didn't fucking believe her. Fine, she'd done her good deed for the day and tried to warn him. She hoped Berry brained him with that big ass shampoo bottle of hers. Rachel's text was a bit longer.

_**Berry*:**__ How am I supposed to know what a killer would or would not do before killing someone? There are all kinds of crazy people in the world, Santana Lopez. I know; I've watched Criminal Minds with you a few times. Also I was genuinely afraid and I don't appreciate you dismissing my fears so casually. What if it had been a crazy killer and you came back from class to find a blood-spattered bathroom and my lifeless, dismembered body in the bathtub? What would you have done then? Furthermore, do you care to explain why exactly Noah Puckerman is using our bathroom when we're not here? There is also the little matter of the fact that I did not hear him break into the room so I'm going to assume that he has somehow procured a key. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?_

Santana rolled her eyes because seriously the girl was such a fucking drama queen. She looked up to the front of the lecture hall and the professor was standing behind the podium now with his 'this is going to be on the final' look on so she typed out a quick reply to Rachel, ignored Puck and put her phone away to pretend to take notes.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Rachel opened her mouth to say something – _anything –_ because honestly, the longer this silence stretched out, the more awkward it got. Her phone beeped saving her the trouble of having to figure out something to say and she looked down.

_**HBIC:**__ Sorry, can't talk now, very important lecture. Must take notes._

Rachel snorted because Santana didn't take notes. She was avoiding Rachel because she knew she was in trouble. She looked up and for some reason Puck was still there, so she sat up straighter and figured out she'd better tackle this problem head on. "So, do you do this often then?"

Puck raised his eyebrows at her. "Not normally with people hiding in the shower but yeah, you could say that it's probably a daily occurrence."

"A daily occurrence?" Rachel asked. Noah Puckerman had been coming into her dorm room, every day, while she was in class, to use her toilet. She wasn't sure if it was the vodka or the fact that it was Noah that made that thought not as surprising as it should have been. "Would you mind if I asked you why?"

"It's like, I've never really been good with shared bathrooms. I mean, don't get me wrong – I can piss in a urinal with the best of them but when I'm dropping the kids off at the pool, it's really fucking uncomfortable to know there's a dude in the stall next to me, doing the exact same thing and knowing that I'm doing it too, you know?"

"Dropping the kids off at the pool?" Rachel asked, confused.

"You know, clearing the traffic jam on the Hershey highway? Taking the Browns to the Superbowl? Makin' a deposit at the porcelain bank?" Puck offered but she still looked confused and slightly disgusted. "Droppin' a deuce, Berry."

Her eyes suddenly went comically wide and now she looked really disgusted. "Are you talking about a..a.._bowel movement_?"

"Yes! Jesus fuck," Puck sighed.

"So wait, you can't do it in the bathroom at your dorm so you come here?" Rachel frowned.

"Not _can't_," Puck scowled. "Didn't fucking say _can't_. I prefer to have my privacy or whatever. Look, it's just I'm pretty regular. Seriously, my body is like, bam! Every day at 10 like fucking clockwork and my 9 o'clock class is right there but my rooms all the way across campus so I'd have to fucking run to get back there and by the time I make it, I'm totally touching cloth." Puck smirked at Rachel, "That's like when you have to go so bad that a little bit—"

"I get the picture," Rachel held up her hand to stop him and shook her head.

"Anyway, I was complaining to Santana about it and she said I could just use you guys' toilet since you were both in class and it was right there and I remembered you totally scored the handicap room with the private bath so I figured why not? And I kind of like it in here. The toilet seat is padded and the heater is like kickass and it smells nice and shit."

"Right," Rachel said, leaning back in the tub. They were quiet for another ten minutes or so when Rachel spoke up again. "Noah?"

"Yeah, babe?"

"Were you eating yogurt earlier?" she turned to him, "On the toilet?"

"No," he shook his head and Rachel relaxed slightly until he reached over to the counter and picked up the green container and a spoon. "'S Pudding," he said before taking a big bite and Rachel sunk lower into the bathtub in disgust. "Got a funny aftertaste though, I think it might be bad or something." Puck swallowed then shrugged and took another bite.

"It's soy," Rachel said, sparing him a glare. "Pretty expensive and hard to find."

"Oh, sorry," Puck said, his mouth full of soy chocolate pudding. "You want the rest?" he offered her the container and she rolled her eyes and shook her head, giving him a small smile.

"Do you mind if I ask what you're doing hiding in the bathtub with a bottle of vodka at 10 in the morning?" He finished the last of the pudding and dropped the container in the trash. So Rachel explained her logic behind being in the bathtub and Puck just shook his head at her. "And the vodka? Where does that come into it?"

"Oh," Rachel looked down at the bottle. "I tried out for a part in the Spring Musical yesterday. I found out this morning that I didn't get it."

"And?" Puck frowned.

"I didn't get it, Noah," Rachel said, sitting up straighter. "I've never _not_ gotten a part before. Everything I try out for I get."

"Everything?" Puck asked and she nodded.

"And this was just a school play," she said, the panic in her voice rising. "That's like the equivalent of Community Theater. If I'm not good enough for a school play then how can I even hope to make it on Broadway? Then everything I've worked for my entire life was all for nothing and I'm going to end up teaching music to third graders in Lima, Ohio and I'm not very good with kids, Noah, I'm not. They kind of scare me because they're tiny and ask strange questions and their hands are always sticky and _why are their hands always sticky_?"

"Shit. Okay, seriously you've got to calm down 'cause you're freaking _me_ out over here," Puck said, sliding off the toilet to kneel down next to the bathtub. He grabbed her shoulders and made her look at him. "One rejection isn't the end of the world, Berry." She opened her mouth and he clapped a hand over it to keep her quiet. "No, seriously, trust me. I've been rejected like a billion times. It doesn't mean you aren't going to make it on Broadway and it sure as hell doesn't mean that you're going to end up teaching music to third graders. Fuck, where did you even come up with that shit?" He dropped her hands and shook his head amused.

"It was a nightmare I had when Finn and I were dating. It was like subconsciously I knew he'd never leave Lima and I imagined what would happen if I were to stay with him and it was horrible, Noah. They were everywhere like a swarm of sticky, curious little things." She shuddered and Puck laughed, full-on laughed at her and that pissed her off so she slapped him as hard as she could, which was totally not hard at all, and just made him laugh even more. Pretty soon she was laughing, too.

"Look Berry, in five years when you're up on stage accepting your Tony for best fucking everything, those fucktards are going to be sitting at home wishing they'd given you that part so that they could say they knew you back when."

"Yeah?" Rachel asked him shyly and he nodded with conviction.

"So how about I take this," he pulled the vodka bottle from her hands, "Cause it's not even noon yet and I have a feeling this is Santana's and she will cut you, roommate or not, and if you still want to get drunk _tonight_, I'll take you out and pay for your drinks."

"You'd do that for me?" Rachel asked.

"Well, yeah. Fuck, Berry. That's like what friends do and shit, right?" She smiled huge then and he knew he'd said the right thing. "But I don't do wallowing or whatever so if we do this, we're gonna be celebrating."

"Celebrating what?" Rachel asked.

"Celebrating the bullet you dodged when they didn't give you the part because obviously, if they couldn't tell how talented you are, then that's gonna be like the lamest show ever," Puck said.

"I can deal with that," Rachel smiled.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Santana rushed back to the dorms after her class figuring Rachel was ready to strangle her, all while hoping that she hadn't already strangled Puck. So to say she was surprised to see them on the floor of the bathroom, Puck's guitar balanced on Rachel's knee as he moved her fingers into the correct position on the neck, would be an understatement. "What the fuck is going on here?"

"Noah's teaching me how to play the guitar," Rachel said brightly.

"We've mastered a total of one chord," he said and Santana could see that his patience was wearing a bit thin but she also noticed that he hadn't stopped yet.

"Okay, why are you doing it in here?" Santana walked into the bathroom and sat down across from them.

"Acoustics," they both said at the same time as Rachel slid the pick down the strings and then smiled brightly when the sound that came out wasn't that of a dying cat. "I did it!" she said and Puck nodded patiently.

"Okay, now E, remember E? I showed you earlier?" Puck asked and Rachel bit her lip and moved her fingers where she thought they were supposed to go. Santana figured that was wrong with the way Puck looked to the ceiling, probably praying to God to give him strength.

He grabbed her fingers and rearranged them all then looked at Santana. "So we're going out tonight, drinks on me, you in?"

"You're buying? Hell yeah," Santana smirked and watched as Rachel slammed the pick down the strings just a bit too hard, causing one of them to snap. She barely resisted the urge not to laugh as the muscle in Puck's jaw twitched and he pulled the guitar from Rachel's hands slowly.

"I'm so sorry, Noah," Rachel said quietly.

"It's okay, it's fine," he said taking deep breaths. "I think we're done for today, but tomorrow we're going to learn how to restring a guitar."


	2. Chapter 2

**January 2014 – Sophomore Year - College**

Puck was just standing to pull his pants up when he heard the door to Rachel and Santana's dorm room open. He was about to warn whoever it was not to come in the bathroom for at least thirty minutes but he shut his mouth when he heard a laugh and then, "Stop!"

Puck frowned and moved closer to the bathroom door. His eyes widened when he realized that Santana must have brought someone back the room. He was hoping for a girl but you never knew with Santana. Her sexuality seemed to vary from week to week.

There was the sound of some pretty serious kissing and then a breathy moan and suddenly Puck's pants were just a little too tight and he frowned because that was not a Santana moan. Santana didn't do breathy. But he remembered that moan, his body remembered that moan.

Then it hit him. That was Rachel's moan, _he'd_ made her moan like that before, and now he was sitting here listening to someone else make her make her moan like that and that was just a bit fucked up.

He tried to think about anything else but it was hard as Rachel got more and more vocal on the other side of the wall and he considered flushing to alert them of his presence but it would be weird now after waiting for so long. Then he thought about squeezing his eyes shut and shoving his fingers in his ears but then the moaning and the groaning and the giggling stopped and he heard movement. Then there was the sound of drawers opening and closing and he heard Rachel say, "I'll be right back, Daniel."

He didn't really have a change to do anything by the time he realized she was coming in the bathroom. Not that he actually could but still. She pulled the door open and froze for a second, her eyes as wide as saucers when she saw him sitting on the toilet. She slammed the door shut behind her and walked further in the room. "What the hell are you doing here?" she whispered angrily at him. He looked down at the toilet and then back up at her as if the answer to the question was obvious. "We're seriously going to have to talk about your unhealthy attachment to our bathroom." Puck rolled his eyes and she stared at him and realization dawned on her, "Were you listening to us? Noah, that is completely inappropriate."

"I thought you were Santana," he defended himself.

"That doesn't make it better."

"Whatever, just get me the fuck out of here," Puck hissed at her and she shook her head.

"You can't leave _now_, he'll know you were in here and that would be awkward," Rachel said.

"And sitting here listening to you fuck some random guy _won't_ be awkward."

"Well, yes, but it will be awkward for you and honestly, I think I can live with that," Rachel told him and he narrowed his eyes at her.

"You're drunk," he accused her and she ignored him and turned to the medicine cabinet, digging through it until she found was she was looking for, pulling a box of condoms out only to frown when it was empty. "Santana," Rachel groaned and dropped the box into the sink. She paused and then turned to him, a slow smile appearing on her face. "You have a condom."

"What?" he asked.

"In your wallet," she said. "You always carry a condom in your wallet."

"Yeah, and?"

"Give it to me," she held out her hand and he scoffed.

"No," he shook his head.

"Are you serious?" Rachel put her hands on her hips. "Give it to me."

"No," he said again. "Look, I give this to you and I forget to replace it, then the next time I've got my hand down a girl's pants and she asks for a condom but I don't have one, I'm stuck doing the five knuckle shuffle in the shower by myself." Rachel opens her mouth to say something and he takes a good look at her for the first time and jumps off the toilet. "Is that my fucking shirt?"

She looks down and sees that she does in fact have his baseball practice t-shirt on from high school. "Technically it's _my_ shirt, you gave it to me junior year," she snapped at him.

"I loaned it to you and you never gave it back," Puck corrected her and she rolled her eyes. "I can't believe you're wearing my shirt with another guy."

"I'm not wearing it with another guy," Rachel argued.

"You're out there fucking some random dude and you've got my number splashed across your chest and that shit's not kosher, Rach," Puck said and he was surprised at how fucking pissed he was about that.

"I wasn't fucking him with your shirt on, Noah," she snapped. "I just threw it on because I didn't feel like walking around the room naked."

Then suddenly it was painfully obvious that she was completely naked under his shirt and fuck if he wasn't hard again. "Take it off," he said.

"What?" Rachel squealed. "I'm naked under this!" she said through gritted teeth.

"Nothing I haven't seen before," he sneered. "Take it off. It's my shirt and I want it back." Puck reached for the bottom of the shirt and pulled and Rachel shoved it right back down.

"This is ridiculous," she snapped at him.

"So is this what you have to do to get off? Wear my shirt with other guys?" Puck asked her. "Does it make you think of me? Of how I was there first?" She was getting mad, he knew, but he couldn't stop for some reason because _he_ was fucking mad. "Tell me, did you wear it with Sam?"

Rachel used her free hand to slap him hard across the cheek and he knew he'd gone too far before he even finished the sentence. "Fuck you," she whispered and he swallowed.

"Rachel, everything okay in there?" the guy called from the other side of the door.

"Yes, I'll be out in a minute," Rachel called, her voice a bit shaky.

"He sounds familiar," Puck said slowly. He remembered her calling him Daniel and he stopped as he connected the name to the voice. "Is that Danny Marshall out there?"

"You know Daniel?"

"Everyone knows Daniel," Puck snorted. "And for the women, yes, I mean that in the biblical sense. Guys had his dick in everything on campus. Now I'm really not giving the condom."

"Noah!"

"I'm doing you a favor here, Rach," Puck insisted. "You'll thank me later."

"I doubt that," she said and was about to tear into him when the bathroom door opened and they both turned to see Daniel standing in the doorway. Rachel looked at Daniel then at Puck and then down at where they're both pulling on her shirt and bit her lip. "Daniel, this isn't what it looks like."

"I have no idea _what_ this looks like but I'm gonna go with…complicated and I'm sorry but I don't do complicated." He held up his hands and backed away. "Tonight was…yeah," he said before turning around and leaving the room.

"Are you happy now?" Rachel screamed and Puck smiled because yeah, he actually was happy but apparently smiling was totally the wrong thing to do at the moment. "Get out," Rachel glared at him, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him to the door. She shoved him into the hall and slammed the door behind him.

"Rach!" Puck knocked on the door. "Don't be like that." The door opened again and she was wearing a robe. He was about to apologize when she shoved the t-shirt into his chest before slamming the door in his face.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

He got a text three days later from Santana telling him to buy her a fucking coffee and meet her in the quad. He did as he was told because Rachel still wasn't talking to him and it was bothering him a hell of a lot more than he wanted to admit. "I should punch you in your nut sack," Santana said as he handed her the coffee.

"What? It's a double shot with two sugars, just how you like it," he grumbled, sitting next to her on the bench.

"Not for the coffee, asshat." She rolled her eyes and took a long sip. "You're fucking in love with her." Santana said and it was almost an accusation.

He didn't love her. Sure, they had that little thing where in he took her virginity. But they both agreed it was a one-time thing and they weren't going to make a big deal about it. The thing is, he didn't actually expect her to _not_ make a big deal about it because girls always made a big deal about it.

But he'd shown up at her dorm room with his 'Surprise I go here too!' face on and she just threw herself into his arms squealing about how excited she was to see him and how she missed him and Santana had rolled her eyes and pointed out they'd just seen each other a week ago.

He'd expected her to blush at the memory, he'd expected her to be awkward about it but she wasn't. Not even the littlest bit. She just grabbed his hand and pulled him into the bedroom and shoved him down on her bed to ask about his classes and where he was staying and how they'd have to make it a point to get together once in a while.

And that was it. She wasn't clingy. She wasn't weird. Hell, she didn't even bring it up. Then a week later, they'd bumped into each other at a party and he was like all over this blonde chick and Rachel just smiled and shook the chick's hand and talked about some Econ professor they shared. And when he mentioned that her dorm was really close and could she be a bro and loan him her room key, all she did was roll her eyes, hand him her key, tell him not to use her bed and to make sure that they were out by 2am because she had a lab the next morning. She wasn't fucking jealous and that pissed him off because he knows he totally rocked her world and she was acting like it never happened.

So he acted like it never happened and they became actual friends over the whole bathroom thing. They started hanging out more and it was cool. But then there was that night a few weeks ago when he'd gotten so drunk he could barely walk and Rachel had brought him back to hers and laid him down in her bed. He'd pulled her on top of him and kissed her and said that he did a favor for her and she should totally do a favor for him.

She had just smiled, kissed his forehead and slept in Santana's bed and then never brought that up either. And then he started getting annoyed when she talked to dudes and even more annoyed when she didn't care that he talked to chicks and then she was there in the bathroom with Danny Marshall. And he started thinking that if it was just about sex, she could have come to him and if she wanted something serious, well, he wouldn't hate it if she came to him for that too.

Then he figured that the thought never even crossed her mind that she could come to him for something serious and Danny was a douche and Puck was like a hundred times the man he'd ever be. But she still didn't come to him and he _wanted_ her to come to him and so he was a dick because having her mad at him was better than having her indifferent toward him.

Fuck, he loved her.

"I tell you to stay the fuck away from her and what do you do? You move to New York."

"It's not like I followed her, I applied to NYU way before I slept with her," he said. "And why exactly have you been such a bitch when it comes to Rachel and me? You flipped the fuck out when we slept together last summer, you get crazy jealous whenever we hang out without you. We were over, like, junior year, Lopez. Move the fuck on."

"As if I care about you," Santana scoffed. "I'm worried about Rachel, okay? I fucking know you, I know how you work. You go through girls like Kleenex and you get them to trust you and then you drop them, and I'm just trying to be a good friend to her."

"How? By just assuming that I'm gonna fuck her over? That I'm gonna break her heart or some shit? That's messed up and I know you're telling her that shit behind my back and that's not fucking cool." Puck snapped. "How about giving me the benefit of the doubt? We've known each other since we were five. How about being a good friend to _me_?"

"Fuck you." Santana glared at him. "You'd throw me under the bus right now to get in her pants."

"Yeah, well ,so would you," Puck shot back and then froze when Santana stiffened. "Oh shit," he whispered because suddenly it all made sense. She wasn't jealous of Rachel, she was jealous of him. "I was just joking,"

"Yeah, well, don't cause it's already fucked up enough as it is." She let out a breath and Puck thought she looked relieved to have it out in the open. "Look, I'm not like in love with her or anything. I'm not that pathetic," she nudged his shoulder. "It's just a crush, it's fine, whatever, I'll get over it. I mean, I'm pretty sure after a few drinks I could talk her into a bit of college experimentation but that's all it would ever be. If it came down to it, she'd choose you."

"Yeah?" Puck asked hopefully.

"Yeah," Santana nodded. "You and your stupid penis." Puck laughed.

"Yeah, well, she's not talking to me right now so me and my stupid penis are just as fucked as you." Puck collapsed against the back of the bench.

Santana smiled and shook her head. "She told me what happened. I can't believe you did that."

"I just…" Puck sighed because he really had no excuse. "She was standing there in my fucking shirt, looking sexy as hell asking me for a condom so she could go screw some other guy. What was I supposed to do?"

"Well, not bring up Sam for starters." Santana shook her head and Puck groaned because he knew out of everything that he could have said, mentioning Sam was the absolute worst.

It happened the summer after freshman year. They'd wanted to stay in the city but they couldn't afford it so they went back home. It had been weird at first, trying to reconcile their new friendships with how people expected them to be back in Lima. For the first two weeks, Puck hung out with the guys and drank and goofed off all day and Santana hung at the mall with Quinn and Brittany. Rachel pretty much just stayed at home, occasionally visiting with Kurt, having coffee with Mercedes or hanging out with Sam, who she apparently had been emailing with all semester because he was really the only one of the New Directions members that bothered to respond to her weekly updates. But her and Puck and Santana didn't see each other. They didn't even call or text and it was just really fucking weird.

Until one day Puck had enough and showed up at Rachel's house while she and Sam were in her bedroom, nodded a quick _"'Sup"_ to the two of them before walking straight into her bathroom and closing the door. Sam had just stared open-mouthed in confusion and Rachel had fallen back onto her mattress laughing until they heard the toilet flush, which made Rachel laugh even harder. Then after that they just hung out like normal and figured whoever didn't like it could just go fuck themselves.

Surprisingly, no one made a big deal about it and the summer went on like normal. They hung out at Rachel's pool during the day and then went bowling or to the movies or basically wherever had air-conditioning at night. Then one night, Santana had a party and Finn got drunk and said some really douchey shit about Rachel and Puck at Mike's party the summer before and they legit didn't even know anyone else knew about that. He'd had Sam take Rachel home and then proceeded to beat the shit out of Finn.

Rachel hadn't really told anyone what happened after that because until now, she didn't remember exactly what happened. She got back to her house and apparently broke into her dads' wine cabinet and Sam hadn't wanted to leave her alone. That's all she remembered until the next morning when she woke up with a naked Sam next to her in bed and Santana screaming at her in Spanish.

Apparently, the fight was epic. After Sam had gathered his clothes and left, the two girls yelled for hours until they were hoarse and it ended with Santana telling Rachel that all she'd ever be able to get were Santana's leftovers and Rachel saying that it was impossible _not_ to get Santana's leftovers because her sexual partners could fill Madison Square Garden three times over.

They didn't talk for two months, which was seriously hard on Puck because they still talked to him and he had to split his time between the two of them and he felt a little bit like kid being shuffled back and forth between two divorced parents. And then Sam was being totally awkward about the whole thing, avoiding Rachel and ignoring her emails, which really hurt her because it truly had just been a drunken mistake and they'd really had a pretty nice friendship going. Then suddenly all of that was gone. (Douche still won't talk to her).

Eventually Puck got fed up with the whole thing and forced them to talk it out. Santana admitted that she didn't really care that much about Sam but she thought Rachel had done it because Santana had let it slip to Finn about her and Puck. Rachel had said she didn't even know about that, and they cried and said stupid girl shit and then kicked him out of his own fucking room to catch up.

It was still a sore subject for fucking _everyone_ involved, _including_ him, which he didn't even realize until last night. Sure, he'd tracked down Sam at one point and gave him a black eye but he'd figured that was just because Sam had made Rachel cry. But apparently it was much more than that. Like if Rachel had wanted a drunken mistake, why couldn't it have been him?

"Look, you and Rach, you guys could be it," Santana said and Puck knew that it practically pained her to do that. "But like, not right now. She's still really messed up over Finn," Puck opened his mouth and she held up a hand hold him off. "Not like she's still in love with him or anything. But he screwed her over pretty bad and she's got some trust issues that the whole thing with Sam really didn't help and they aren't just gonna go away overnight. She's just not ready yet to take that chance again."

"So what do I do?" Puck asked her.

"You wait," Santana shrugged. "And while you're waiting, you apologize."

"Yeah," he nodded. "I was getting around to that."

"Get around to it faster," she told him then stood up and walked away.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Later that day, when he knew she was in class, he used his key to get into their room and put his freshly laundered, neatly folded baseball tee on top of her pillow. He turned to leave when he saw that she'd put a fucking padlock on the bathroom door and guessed it was going to take more than just his shirt to fix this one.

Two days later, he was outside of their favorite coffee shop studying for his history test when she dropped a large Tupperware of cookies on his open book and sat down across from him. "What are these?"

"_I-accept-your-apology-but-don't-think-I've-totally-forgiven-you-because-you're -still-an-ass_ cookies," she said with a totally straight face. He'd been told through Santana that she appreciated the return of her shirt but still hadn't talked to him so he'd used his key to sneak into their room pretty much every chance he got over the next two days, leaving little gifts on her bed. A CD by this band they'd gone to see once, these vegan cupcakes that she fucking loved that were only sold at this tiny little bakery in New Jersey which he had to get to before six in the morning because those thing went _fast_. He's not sure what finally got him the cookies but he's willing to bet it was probably the two tickets to a showing of _Into the Woods_ on her birthday that he practically had to beg, borrow, and steal to get.

Puck bit into one and closed his eyes in ecstasy. "Really? Because they taste like _Noah-you-were-totally-right-thank-you-for-saving-me-from-an-embarassing-student-health-clinic-visit_ cookies."

Rachel narrowed her eyes at him and sighed. "How did you hear?"

"That Danny went back to the party that night and ended up giving that chick in your drama class crabs?" Puck raised his eyebrows. "She was pissed. She started a website called .com and e-mailed the link to the entire student body."

"Thanks," she mumbled and he smiled.

"Sorry," he mumbled and she smiled.

Santana sat down and handed them both fresh coffees and rolled her eyes. "You guys are fucking hopeless."

"Hey, are you gonna take the padlock off the bathroom now?" he asked hopefully and Rachel laughed.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**July 2015 – Summer Before Senior Year of College**

Rachel opened her eyes a bit and immediately closed them at the brightness. Her head was pounding, her mouth felt like she'd drunk the Sahara, and her throat felt like she'd then subsequently thrown it all up. She took a few deep breaths and then tried again, blinking rapidly until she adjusted to the light and took stock of her situation. She was in her apartment, in the bathroom in her apartment, on the floor. The toilet was like two inches from her face and she gripped the seat to pull herself up.

She loved her bathroom; it was quite possibly the most amazing bathroom she'd ever seen. It had twenty foot ceilings with three huge skylights, an old claw foot tub and a separate shower stall. The tile floor was heated and the marble topped vanity looked like it came straight out of an old Hollywood film. It was basically the reason they took the apartment.

So yeah, she loved her bathroom, but not enough to voluntarily sleep in it. She spent two weeks and went to 37 mattress stores before she found the fluffiest, most comfortable mattress in the world. She'd laid down on it, taken a deep breath, and declared that she wanted to be buried lying on _this _mattress. Puck had thrown his hands up in the air and actually screamed hallelujah then turned to the sales clerk and said, "We'll fucking take it. Like right now. I don't even need a receipt. I can just pay you and you can like fucking strap it to my back or something."

The salesman had looked scared but in Puck's defense, 37 stores was a little excessive and he'd gone to each and every one of them with her. The thing is the mattress had been expensive, like really expensive, like living on Cup of Noodle and $1 a slice pizza for three months expensive. She made sure to get her money's worth out of it so why the hell wasn't she sleeping in it?

She remembered going out. She'd gotten her first actual role on Broadway. Well, technically it wasn't an actual role, she was just an understudy, _but_ an understudy to Little Red Riding Hood in _Into the Woods_. Puck said it still counted; in fact, it counted more because it was the only musical he'd every actually gone to see. He'd taken her for her birthday and kind of liked it. But it had never really been her favorite so she'd be lying if she said that wasn't one of the reasons she went out for the role. Okay, maybe the main reason.

She looked down at her chest and noticed she was wearing a faded Elvis Costello t-shirt, the origins of which she had no clue, tight skinny jeans and no less than four separate stamps on her hand. Then she noticed the throw blanket beside her and the pillow that had been slipped under her head, right next to a glass of water and two aspirin. She smiled softly, grabbing the aspirin and downing them then gulping the rest of the water.

A loud snore made her jump and her head throb and she spun around to see Puck sprawled out in the claw foot tub. His head was hanging over one side, a pillow half-shoved under it and his legs were hanging out the other side and it had to be the most uncomfortable position in the world so she wondered why on earth he was sleeping in there.

She had a vague memory of him trying to carry her to her bed. But she'd insisted she stay in the bathroom just in case because she wasn't 100% sure she was done puking. So he'd brought her a pillow and a blanket and set out the aspirin and water and then kissed her forehead, brushing the hair off her face and she'd grabbed his wrist and said, "Stay." 

Obviously, he'd stayed. Puck knew there was a really good chance that she was so drunk she wouldn't remember and even if she did remember, she certainly wouldn't have held it against him to get up and move to his bed after she fell asleep. She stared at him and was hit with a sudden realization that it was entirely likely the thought never even occurred to him.

She crawled over to the tub and sat up on her knees just watching him. He was snoring like a lumberjack, there was a very long string of drool from the corner of his mouth to his shoulder and at some point during the night, his hand had found its way into his pants. But still, he stayed with her and all she could think was, _"God I love this man."_

She froze, surprised by her own admission and yet not really all that surprised at all. She loved Noah, she was _in_ love with Noah. It was like this epiphany and suddenly, everything was clear and the whole world was a better place. Yet she had no idea what to do with this knowledge. Did she tell him? Did he love her? Could she risk that? Could she not?

She was working herself into a freak-out of practically epic proportions when her phone beeped. She pulled it out of her pocket to see the alert she'd set for herself; she had an hour to get to the theater for her first table read. This was great, this was more than great because she had a role, of sorts, on Broadway and that's what was important and that's what she would focus on, because honestly, right now, she didn't have time to be in love with Noah Puckerman.

She reached up and wiped the drool from his mouth and he stirred a bit, leaning into her hand. She smiled and kissed his forehead softly before she could stop herself. He sucked in a breath and stretched a bit before blinking rapidly and looking up at her. "Hey," he whispered, smiling sheepishly.

"Hey," Rachel smiled back down at him, brushing a bit of hair off his forehead. "You need a haircut." She was still getting used to not seeing the Mohawk every time she looked at him, even after almost two years.

"I always need a haircut," he mumbled. "Why are you upside down?"

"I'm not, you are," Rachel giggled and stood up and that's when he realized he was dangling out of the bathtub. He sat up quickly and then winced, rubbing at his neck.

"How are you feeling?" he asked as she grabbed his hands and helped pull him out of the tub.

"Probably better than you," she said. "What happened last night?"

He paused then, his hand freezing for just a second as he rubbed at his neck, it was so quick she wasn't even really sure if she even saw it. "You don't remember?" he asked her slowly.

Rachel squinted and tilted her head to the side, thinking as she pulled herself up on the vanity top. "I remember you taking us out to that restaurant on 6th. I remember two bottles of wine," she squinted harder. "Then I think we met up with some of the other cast members at this club in Tribeca. Then there were shots of something…"

"Tequila," Puck said encouragingly.

"Right," Rachel felt bile rise up in her throat at the thought of it. "Then…did we go to the Village?"

Puck nodded. "Yeah but the DJ was lame so we left."

"Right, I don't really remember much after that." Rachel frowned.

"We went to a few more clubs and then this bar," Puck smiled. "And when we decided to call it a night and we got kicked out of two cabs because you wouldn't stop singing." Rachel cringed. "San wanted to walk to get some fresh air and you wanted to take the subway because your feet hurt but Santana refused because she said the last time she got on the subway after 2, some guy peed in her purse."

"So you carried me," Rachel said slowly. "You gave me a piggy back ride all the way home."

Puck blushed under her intense gaze and kept telling his story, "So we got back and you spent like two hours hugging the toilet and you refused to get in your bed. I tried, I knew your neck would kill after sleeping on the floor but you were pretty adamant about it." Rachel nodded. She also remembered him holding her hair, and rubbing her back and putting a cold cloth on her neck. "And then you fell asleep."

_There's something else_. Rachel thought suddenly and she knew it was true, there was something that happened, something that she'd said or done that he wasn't telling her and she wanted to know why. She wanted to ask him and keep asking him until he told her but she didn't. "Well, thanks, you know for carrying me and the pillow and the aspirin and for staying with me." Rachel said instead.

"Anytime," Puck smiled and suddenly it was the night before and she was sitting on a different counter and he was in front of her smiling and she remembered.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

_Puck really should have seen it coming, given their history and all, but honestly there was no fucking way he actually could have seen it coming. They were at the third or fourth club of the evening, he'd honestly lost count at this point, and apparently the chick that Rachel beat out for the role had come in with a group of her friends. Then someone started talking shit about how Rachel's voice wasn't really all that. Rachel on a good day wasn't gonna take that so Rachel after an ass-load of drinks was pretty much ready to throw down old-school style. She'd said something along the lines of how the only thing worse that the other chick's voice was obviously her ability to pleasure a man in the bedroom because Rachel had it on good authority that she'd slept with the director and she still hadn't gotten the part. Of the understudy. _

_Now on the inside, Puck was seriously proud of her for that; on the outside, his whole body tensed up because he just knew something was about to happen. But there was no way that he could have predicted that the chick would grab a fucking daiquiri off the tray of a passing waitress and legit throw it in Rachel's face. _

_Suddenly, it was like she was 16 again, standing in the hall of McKinley High after some hockey douche slushied her. The thing was she wasn't 16, and they weren't at McKinley, because seriously at McKinley, Puck would have the asshole who tossed the drink in her face laid out on the floor faster than Rachel could wipe the corn syrup out of her eyes. _

_Santana appeared at his side out of fucking nowhere and was legit holding him back. "You take care of Rachel, I'll take care of the bitch," she'd said and all ninja-like made her way through the crowd of people._

"_Rach, come on," Puck said, grabbing a stunned Rachel by the elbow and pulling her in the general direction of where he remembered seeing the bathroom. _

_There was no chair to sit her down in so he hoisted her up on the counter so that she could lie back as he rinsed the drink and ice out of her hair. One of her theater friends knocked on the door and handed him a towel she probably got from the bartender, some wet wipes, and a hairbrush. "Thanks," Puck said and the girl just smiled. "Did you see…" _

"_Claire was trying to sneak out when Santana caught up with her," the girl whose name Puck really wished he remembered smiled at him. "She's taking care of it." _

_He had no doubt that she would so he turned his attention back to Rachel, who seemed a bit more alert now. "Noah?" she frowned at him. "Did that seriously just happen?" _

"_Yeah," he shook his head and rubbed the towel over her head, trying to squeeze as much moisture out of her hair as possible. "It seriously did." _

_A huge grin broke out on Rachel's face and she rolled her eyes. "We've got to stop meeting like this." _

_He chuckled then rubbed the towel over her hair one last time before settling it around her shoulders. "Your shirt's soaked," he said, noticing it for the first time. "Here," he unbuttoned his dress shirt then pulled his under shirt over his head and handed it to her. _

_She stripped off her wet shirt, not bothering to go into a stall this time, not like he hadn't seen it before, and pulled his shirt over her head. She looked down at the faded logo and smiled up at him. "Elvis Costello?" _

"_Hey, I think it's actually pretty apt right now," Puck laughed. "'Cause seriously, what's so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding?" Rachel laughed at him and shook her head as he pulled his button up back on and then grabbed the wet wipes and started cleaning off her face. _

"_Thanks," she grabbed his wrist and he stopped and looked at her. "For, you know, everything." _

"_Anytime." He flashed her a smile and went back to work._

"_Noah?" Her voice was all quiet again and he looked up from her chin to find her staring at him. "Do you ever play, 'what if'?" _

"_Not if I can help it," he shrugged, grabbing another wipe and moving to the opposite cheek. _

"_I used to do it all the time. It was mainly about being a star, Broadway, and, for a while in high school, Finn." Puck snorted and she kicked him in the side lightly. "But now I have all that – well, obviously not Finn but that's okay because I don't want him anymore – but lately, I've found myself playing it constantly." Puck stopped cleaning her face to really look at her and maybe it was the way her voice had suddenly gotten softer, or maybe it was the way she'd said she didn't want 'him' anymore, emphasis on the him, like maybe she wanted someone else. "You see, the thing is, lately my what if's, they're all about you." _

"_Me?" he asked her, his own voice was a whisper now, almost as if he was afraid if he talked too loud he'd break whatever bubble of insanity he'd just found himself in, because no way was Rachel Berry actually sitting in front of him saying she had 'what if's' about him. _

"_Yeah, like: what if I hadn't dumped you on those bleachers sophomore year? What if you hadn't been worried about Finn junior year? What if Santana had never come into the bathroom at Mike's party?" She was staring at him and he couldn't help but stare back. "What if it had been you who took me home that night instead of Sam?" _

"_Rach…" he licked his lips, his throat suddenly dry because fuck if he hadn't thought about all of those things and more over and over again. _

"_Do you ever think about that night?" she asked and he knew immediately she wasn't talking about the night with Sam; she was talking about Mike's party. "I do all the time. I always wondered if you thought about it. Because it was special to me, being my first time and all, and because of you, of course, but it was hardly your first time and I didn't know…I wasn't sure, if having sex for you was just like kissing." Puck furrowed his brow confused, because what the fuck? As if sensing his confusion, she explained. "You told me once that kissing you was just the inevitable outcome of living in Lima. Everyone does it and it doesn't mean anything. I wasn't sure if, for you, sex was the same thing." _

"_It fucking meant something," Puck said and he hadn't realized that he'd gotten so close until his nose brushed against hers. "I think about it all the time, Rach, and it might not have been my first time but it was special to me. You chose me, you trusted me, and that fucking meant something." _

"_I don't want you to be a 'what if' anymore, Noah," Rachel said. "I don't want you to be just another thing in my life that I look back on in ten years and wonder about what could have been." _

_It was so easy, so very easy to tilt his head a little to the side, slide his nose along hers until their lips met and it was like the years of denying themselves came crashing down and the world itself breathed a sigh of relief. Puck stepped closer, feeling her thighs squeeze his hips, almost as if they were trying to keep him in place which was hilarious because he wasn't going anywhere, was never going anywhere ever again. _

_He could feel her hands on his chest, her fingernails scraping lightly down his abs and he nipped gently at her bottom lip, causing her to gasp and open up for him. His tongue slid past her teeth, tasting her for the first time in almost five years and his knees almost buckled. She tasted like Rachel, which in itself was legit so fucking good he could survive a lifetime on that alone, but also a hint of the wine from dinner, the tequila from the first club, and the subsequent miscellaneous shots and mixed drinks from the rest of the night and that's what eventually made him pull away. _

"_How drunk are you?" he panted, squeezing his eyes closed as he leaned his forehead on hers because he knew if he looked at her right now, saw her kiss-swollen lips and her lust-filled eyes, he wouldn't be able to stop. _

"_Drunk enough to do this, but not so drunk that I don't know what I'm doing," she said teasingly and he smiled in spite of himself at the almost word for word recitation of her answer to the same question five years ago. Then her lips were on his again and her hand was making its way down to his belt buckle and it took all the strength he had to take a step back. He opened his eyes and looked up at her before taking another step back for good measure. _

"_Wait, stop. We're not doing this," he said suddenly and Rachel's whole face fell. "Here," he clarified. "We're not doing this here, not now. You deserved better than the bathroom counter last time and that one was at least fucking clean. Fuck, I don't even know if that brownish spot over there is blood or…look, Rach - I want you. Fuck, you have no idea how much I want you. But I don't want you to be a 'what if' either. I don't want this to be a drunk fuck that you forget in the morning. I don't want you to wake up tomorrow and regret this. I don't want to be like Sam." _

_She jumped off the counter and walked over to him. "You won't," she insisted, bringing her hands up to cup his cheeks. "You couldn't ever be like Sam." _

"_You guys haven't talked in five years and I don't want that to be us, Rach," Puck admitted. _

"_It won't be," she said again, reaching up to kiss him softly. _

"_Then wait," Puck told her, grabbing her wrists loosely and pulling her hands from his face. "Tomorrow, when you're sober, if you remember this and you still want this, I'll be there." _

"_Promise?" Rachel asked him._

"_Promise," he nodded. _

"_Alright, we've got like two minutes to get the fuck out of here or the bouncer's gonna call the cops!" Santana flung the bathroom door open, grabbed Rachel's arm and dragged her toward the door. _

"_Your hands!" Rachel said, grabbing Santana's wrist to study her bloody knuckles. _

"_Yeah, the bitch has some serious fucking hard cheekbones." Santana shook her hand painfully. "Well, _had_ I guess. Yo Puckerman, you coming or you wanna spend the night in jail? 'Cause I will not hesitate to leave your ass and I've got no extra money lying around for bail." _

_::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::_

"Noah," she said softly and he looked up at her. "I'm sober now," Rachel said suddenly.

"What?" he whispered, terrified that he'd misheard her.

She jumped down off the vanity and walked to stand in front of him. "I'm sober now, and I don't want any more 'what if's'."

"Thank fuck," he said before grabbing the back of her neck and pulling her in for a kiss. "Do you have any idea how long I've wanted you?" he whispered against her lips, "Wanted this?"

"I know," Rachel said sinking into him. "I _know_."

He backed her up until her thighs hit the vanity and was about to lift her up when he stopped and shook his head. "Wait, no. Bed." He smirked. "I've been waiting five years to get you into a bed. Do you have any idea the things I've wanted to do to you in a bed?" He grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward the bathroom door but she didn't move.

"Yeah, about that," she bit her lip. "I've got to be at the theater in 45 minutes, and I _really_ need to shower," Rachel said and Puck threw his head back in annoyance.

"So what? You're just kicking me out?" he scoffed.

"Unless you want to join me," Rachel offered and he was grabbing at the hem of his shirt before the words were even out of her mouth. She walked over to him, stopping him and shaking her head. Because if she started this right now, she wasn't going to want to leave.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and smiled up at him. "How about you take my bed, get a bit more sleep," he smirked because he loved her mattress almost more than she did, "And when I'm done at the theater, I'll bring you back something from Barney Greengrass."

"Lox and cream cheese?" he asked hopefully. She wrinkled her nose but nodded.

"And then you can show me all of the wonderfully depraved things you've been dreaming about doing to me in a bed."

"Who says they're depraved?" he asked and she just looked at him. "Okay, whatever, _some_ of them are depraved."

She shook her head and leaned up to kiss him, keeping it soft and sweet pulling away only when she heard a groan at the bathroom door. "Fucking finally. God, you two have been so lame, it's actually been painful to look at you." Santana pushed past them, dropped her pants and sat on the toilet and proceeded to go. "Does this mean I get my own room now?" she asked hopefully and Rachel just laughed.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


	3. Chapter 3

**September 2018 **

Puck unrolled the playbill, smoothing it out on his thigh before grabbing his tie and loosening it a bit. He grabbed the playbill again and started to roll it up when Rachel's dad grabbed his wrist. Puck looked sheepish but Mr. Berry just smiled knowingly. "I always get nervous before one of her performances, it's natural."

Puck just snorted because it _wasn't_ natural. It's not like he was the one about to make his Broadway debut in a role that hadn't been on the stage in over forty years. And yet, he was nervous none the less.

Rachel had suffered through three turns as an understudy, on three separate musicals, never once getting the chance to actually perform. Then he'd come home to find her in tears one night because she'd decided to take a break from Broadway. It was just a break, she insisted, because as much as Broadway was her dream, she just really needed to be on stage again.

She took some supporting roles off-off-Broadway and he'd never seen her happier. Then she got a starring role just off-Broadway. Then finally, one night she'd gone into her dressing room and found David, a guy she'd worked with on a couple plays in there, waiting for her. He told her that he was planning a revival of Funny Girl on Broadway and he wanted her to play Fanny Brice.

She'd laughed in his face, kicked him out of her room, and came home and told Puck as if it was the funniest thing in the universe. Two days later, her director called her in on her day off and David was there, too. They sat her down, explained that he was telling the truth, that it wasn't a joke and then her director promptly fired her from the play because he wasn't going to let her pass up an opportunity like that.

Here he was, six months later, sitting in between Rachel's dads and Santana, waiting for the curtain to rise on opening night. "Excuse me, I'm sorry, excuse me," a soft voice whispered, getting closer and closer to them. "Excuse me," a man said from Santana's side and looked right at Puck. "Mr. Puckerman?"

"Yeah?" Puck slid to the edge of his seat.

"Ms. Berry is having…some problems," the man said and Puck raised his eyebrows. "She's, well, she's locked herself in the bathroom of her dressing room and she refuses to come out. Say's she won't talk to anyone but you. As she's supposed to take the stage in a little under fifteen minutes, I'd be very appreciative if you'd come with me."

Puck rolled his eyes, gave her dads a reassuring smile and followed the guy backstage and into Rachel's dressing room. David was pacing outside and his eyes lit up when he saw Puck heading for them. "I don't know what happened, one minute she was fine, the next she said she wasn't coming out and there was nothing we could do to make her. The house is sold out, her understudy is a twit who didn't even bother to learn the blocking because pretty much everyone figured that Rachel's dead body would have to be dragged from the stage before she got her chance. I'll have to refund the tickets. The show will be over before it even had a chance."

"Calm the fuck down. I'll take care of it," Puck assured him and walked into the dressing room. The flowers he'd sent her that morning were sitting on the table by the door, her iPod was on its docking station by her make-up mirror playing the soundtrack to her show on repeat as was her pre-show ritual, and her tea was cooling on it's tray by her couch. But there was no sign of Rachel. "Baby?" he called out cautiously.

"In here," she said and he frowned as he heard the bathroom lock disengage. He walked in the bathroom, shutting the door behind him and found her sitting on the toilet seat, already in full costume and makeup.

"Is everything okay?" Puck asked her cautiously but she didn't say anything. "Look, it's okay to be nervous—"

"I'm not nervous, Noah." Rachel rolled her eyes and stood up. "I don't get nervous."

"Okay, then what's the problem here? David's freaking out. Well, actually it's kind of funny but I'm seriously afraid the guys going to have a coronary or something."

"It's just that I seem to have found myself with quite a lot of…excess energy." Rachel stood up, wringing her hands.

"Okay, but energy is good right?" Puck said confused. "You always used to tell us that back in Glee club, always said we needed more energy."

"There's good energy and there's bad energy," Rachel explained. "And this energy is the bad kind. I just…I need to _release_ it before I go on stage."

"Okay," Puck says, still unsure what exactly she wanted him for until he replayed her words and noticed the emphasis she put on the word _release_ and the way she was looking at him, biting her bottom lip. "Oh," he finally caught on. "I'm always down for a little energy release." He wiggled his eyebrows and she rolled her eyes stepping closer to him and kissing him hard. He pulled away, confused. "You mean, like now?"

"No, Noah, after the show." Rachel rolled her eyes at him before smiling and pulling his shirt from his pants.

"Right," he pulled her forward again, crushing her against his chest. He grabbed her thigh, lifting it up against his hip as he tried to lift her skirt. She smacked his hand away and pulled back shaking her head.

"Don't be ridiculous, I'm already in costume. It takes 45 minutes to get me into this and I have to be on stage in," she checked her watch, "Nine minutes. No way are you taking it off."

He looked at her confused, his breath coming too fast. "Then what the hell do you want me to do?" he asked her.

"Just stand there and look pretty." She patted his cheek before dropping to her knees. Then his pants were unzipped and down around his ankles and he sent a little thank you up to Jew God because it had been so fucking long since she'd done this for him, he barely even remembered what it felt like. He was almost painfully hard when her tongue darted out, circled the head and then she wrapped her lips around him, pulling him deeper and deeper into her mouth, and he wondered _why_ it had been so long.

Then she looked up at him through her lashes, pulling off of him completely, licking her lips and said, "Say it," and he knew he was fucked.

The reason why it had been so long since she'd done this was because he hadn't _let_ her do this. It sounded fucked up, he knew, but honestly when she had him like this – his dick halfway down her throat, his legs threatening to give out underneath him, his body completely and totally relaxed – she could basically get him to do anything. She'd figured that out rather early in their relationship and constantly used it to her advantage. Usually, he didn't mind because he'd probably have done whatever she wanted him to do anyway. At least this way he got an amazing blowjob of out the deal. And make no mistake about it, hers were amazing. All because of three little words; No. Gag. Reflex.

Almost as soon as he'd thought the words, she grabbed his hips, opened her jaw just a little bit wider and slid him as far back as she could. The tip of his dick was brushing the back of her throat and she glanced up at him, a hint of challenge in her eyes before swallowing.

"Fuck," he groaned, slamming his head against the bathroom door. She pulled off completely again and wrapped her hands around him, sliding her thumb over the head ever so gently.

"Five minutes, Ms. Berry," a frantic voice called from the other side of the door and Rachel ignored it.

"Just say it," she said again, her voice amused.

"Fuck you," he panted and she flicked her wrist just the way he liked it and his knees buckled a bit.

He knew what she wanted to hear but no way in hell was he going to be the one who said it first. It had become this game between him. He wasn't sure how it started, the both of them were already in the middle of it before either of them even realized it. It was Santana who had pointed it out to them, about six months into their relationship. She asked them flat out one night why they never said 'I love you'.

They'd been confused because of course they said it. Puck thought it all the fucking time so obviously he said it, right? But when they thought about it, really thought it about it, they realized they never actually did. They both _knew_ they were in love each other. They knew that more than they knew anything else in the world, there was never really any doubt about that. And they _showed_ each other all the time.

Like when Puck knew Rachel had a long day at the theater, he'd make sure the dishes were done, the laundry all picked up and that the living room didn't have beer bottles and pizza boxes all over the place. And when she walked in the door at quarter to eleven after leaving the house at quarter to six, he'd have a steaming hot bubble bath waiting for her with a glass of her favorite wine.

Or like when he got called into work one Sunday afternoon to play a session for one of the pickier musicians at the studio he worked at and he had to stay there all day playing the same song over and over and over again until the prick decided that he liked the take they'd done on Friday much better. He'd gotten home pissed off at the world and ready to toss his guitar out their bedroom window and Rachel had gotten him his favorite triple meat pizza from this little place like all the way across town and the fridge was stocked with ice cold beer. She told him that she'd DVR'd the game for him then sat with him without asking him questions even though he could tell that she really wanted to. and then she let him kiss her when his team won and didn't even complain about the meat taste in his mouth.

But they'd never actually said the words. Out loud. And when they realized that, it had sort of become, like, a game to them to try and get the other person to say it first. He'd been the closest so far. He 'd almost gotten her to say it when be brought her home this tiny little ball of white fluff that he swore was a puppy. He'd told her how he'd seen it shivering in an alley on 57th and how it had no tags. He told her how he remembered her telling him the story of how she brought home a stray dog when she was five and she named it Rover. She made it a bed in her closet and she'd taken all her allowance from the past year and walked to the pet store and bought it a leash, food bowls, a chew toy. But when her dad got home, he told her that she couldn't keep it because her daddy was terribly allergic. She cried for three days straight.

The fact that he'd remembered not only the story but the name that she'd given the dog had her saying, "I love…" before she caught herself. But instead she just smirked at Puck and continued with, "…him, I love him." Then took the puppy and walked over to the couch, asking him what they should call it. (After much arguing they finally settled on Kashmir. Puck liked it because it was a kick ass fucking song and Rachel liked it because the puppy was seriously softer than anything they'd ever felt before). So now he had a fucking dog and yeah, he hadn't really thought that one through.

But here she was, using the oldest and cruelest trick in the book and he could not let her win. Her thumbnail brushed over the bundle of sensitive nerves right at the tip and she laughed when he moaned and said, "Three little words, Noah, all you have to do is say them and I'll let you come."

"I…" he swallowed hard as she took him completely in her mouth again. "I love…." She looked up at him and smirked around him and that gave him just a bit of strength. "I love how for someone with such an extensive vocabulary, you still can't ever pronounce 'peculiar' right. I love how you still get sad every time I eat a steak. I love how every time someone new moves into the building you bake them a batch of 'Welcome' cookies," she moved faster with every word he said and he could tell she was totally getting off by what he was saying, she was making these little moans in the back of her throat and it was driving him crazy. "I love how you like to spend lazy Sundays in bed with me, with your hair piled on top of your head, wearing only my old baseball tee shirt and looking hotter than anyone who hasn't showered has a right to look," she groaned, loud around him and his breath caught in his throat as his hands slid into her hair. "But, most of all, I love the way you thought I was gonna fall for that."

She glared at him and stopped, pulling her mouth off of him with an audible pop. "I have to be on that stage in two minutes Noah," she wrapped her fingers around him as she started stroking him agonizingly slow. "I know that it is without a doubt going to be one of the greatest moments of my life. And the only thing that could possibly make it better is if I go out there knowing that you love me."

"Baby, you already know that," Puck panted, he was close, he was so fucking close, if she'd just—she smiled up at him, to tell him it was okay before she took him back in her mouth, took him all the way in and swallowed again, and then again and before he knew it, he was coming and he had to grab onto the door knob to keep himself from falling to the ground because he's pretty sure his bones had just turned to jelly.

"You're right," Rachel said, standing up slowly. "I do know that. It's just nice to hear it sometimes." She shrugged then turned around and made a move toward the vanity when he reached out and grabbed her wrist, spinning her around because he hadn't said it and she still let him finish.

"I fucking love you," he said unable to hold it in any longer. "I loved you when I was 7 and my dad had just left and you came up to me at Temple and told me that you knew I didn't have a dad anymore and that I was really sad about it but you had two dads and if it would make me feel better, I could have one of yours." Rachel just stared at him. "I loved you when I was 14. It was the first day of high school and I forgot my lunch and I didn't have any money to eat in the cafeteria. Santana called me a loser and told the whole class that I was so poor, my mom couldn't even afford food, and you called her a bitch and told her that she was stupid and that everyone knew she'd gotten a nose job over the summer. Then you poured your lunch on her head. I loved you when I was throwing slushies in your face and I loved you when you were dumping me on the bleachers and I loved you more than I thought was possible when you came up to me at Mike's party and told me that you trusted me and you chose me and I've loved you every fucking day since." Tears were welling up in Rachel's eyes by now. "I loved you before I knew what love meant and I'm gonna fucking love you for the rest of my life." When he finished his speech she was just looking at him, staring at him. "What?" he panted, painfully aware that his pants were still down around his ankles.

"You love me," She smirked at him, stepping closer.

"You don't get to gloat about his," Puck said. "I can barely stand. You've sucked my brain out through my dick and you _do not_ get to gloat about this."

"You love me." Rachel smiled bigger.

"Yeah, I do." Puck kissed her nose softly.

There was another frantic knock at the door. "One minute, Ms. Berry," the attendant who'd come to get called through the door and Rachel smiled and grabbed his pants, pulling them up and fastening them for him when he still couldn't seem to move to do it himself. Then she flung the door open and smiled her show smile.

"Okay, I'm ready to go on now." She stalked out the door, ever the diva, as Puck slowly came to his senses.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" he said, tucking his shirt back into his pants as he tore out of the bathroom after her. "I just poured my fucking heart out in there and all you can say is, 'I'm ready to go on now'?" He balked at her.

"Noah, I've got to be on stage in thirty seconds," she told him. "I really don't have time."

"Don't have time?" he scoffed at her but she just kissed him and stepped out on stage. As he stared after her, he couldn't believe that she'd just done that to him. He allowed the attendant to lead him back to his seat and he assured her fathers that everything was okay. Obviously, because she was up on stage belting out _I'm The Greatest Star _in a way that she never had before. Santana leaned up to whisper in his ear and he could hear her smirk.

"You look like you just had the greatest orgasm of your life and then found out she was really a dude." Puck didn't say anything but if his elbow slipped a little into her stomach, he didn't apologize for it.

Just when he was working himself up from kind of annoyed to pretty pissed, she finished the song, holding that last note out strong and long. Then she looked out into the audience, stared straight into his eyes and touched the tip of her finger to the side of her nose and winked before spinning around and exiting stage right.

That had started a few months ago. She had a rare Saturday afternoon off and she was curled up on the couch reading a book when he asked her if she'd mind if he watched the game.

"_Of course not," she smiled, sliding her feet into his lap. "I love baseball." _

"_Since when?" Puck asked, turning the television on and changing it to ESPN. _

"_Since I saw how romantic it was," Rachel explained ,closing her book and setting it on the coffee table. _

"_Romantic?" Puck raised his eyebrows at her. "And just what the hell is so romantic about baseball?" _

_She looked at him with that honestly-Noah-how-can-you-be-so-dense look. "Every time someone new goes up to bat, the man standing over by third base sends out a secret message to his beloved." _

"_What the fuck are you talking about?" Puck stared at her as if she was insane. _

"_There," Rachel pointed excitedly at the screen and he turned and watched as the third base coach tapped the bridge of his hat, then touched the side of his nose and Puck laughed so hard, he literally fell off the couch. It took him about five minutes to calm down and by then Rachel was fuming. "Baby, he's not sending out secret messages to his beloved or whatever the fuck that means. He was just using hand signals to tell that guy to steal second." _

"_Oh," she deflated and watched as the guy on first took off when the pitcher's back was turned and stole second. "Well, how was I supposed to know? Carol Burnett used to tug her ear at the end of every show to tell her grandmother that she loved her. I just assumed…you didn't have to laugh at me." Rachel pouted and grabbed her book. _

_Puck went back to his game, absently running his hand up and down her calf. "Rach," he called to her but she kept her head steadfastly in her book. "Rach," he said again, pinching her ankle. She looked up at him and glared but he just smiled and touched the side of his nose with his finger. _

_She laughed and tossed the book to the floor before launching herself across the couch at him. _

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

He laughed. He couldn't help it, it just busted out of him and everyone sitting around them turned to him and glared. But he didn't care because she'd just told him that she loved him in front of two thousand people and it didn't matter that they were the only two people who knew it. He'd get her to say it later, he knew he could do it. She wasn't the only one with a talented mouth and two could definitely play at that game.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**April 2019**

Rachel was humming something almost too quiet to hear but he could feel the vibrations against his chest. It felt nice and relaxing so he leaned back against the cold porcelain of the tub, wrapped an arm around her stomach and pulled her with him. She just chuckled and kept humming. He cracked open one eye to look at her. She had her leg up in the air as she slathered it with shaving cream. Halfway through the first leg, her humming turned to soft singing and he found himself tracing random shapes onto her stomach with his fingertip.

He was pretty sure he could fall asleep like that. He was fucking exhausted. He'd had a gig the night before and didn't get in until almost four in the morning. Then Santana woke him up at six by jumping on his stomach and said that Rachel had been trying to wake him for an hour and she was getting pretty pissed and that if they missed their flight because of him, she was going to castrate him with a very dull spoon. So he'd gotten up and drank like half a pot of coffee before dragging his half-asleep ass to the airport.

Rachel and San slept the whole fucking flight dead to the world, which was bullshit because he knew for a fact they left the club around eleven and who the fuck can sleep on a plane anyway? Honestly, they were like 5 miles off the ground in this super heavy, giant _thing_ that really should not be able to fly but somehow did. Like magic. Rachel had tried to explain to him that they were perfectly safe and used words like lift and wing span and thrust engines and he'd just looked at her and shook his head and said _"Magic"._

Then when they'd gotten off the plane, every fucking member of New Directions was standing there at baggage claim waiting for them. Seriously, it was kind of embarrassing and the only thing that could have made it worse would have been if they'd had a sign or something.

(Finn told him later that they _did_ have a sign that Brittany had spent all night making. It had glitter and rainbows and shooting stars on it. But when they got off the plane, Rachel had apparently sent him a text warning him that Puck was a bit cranky so he'd told her to ditch it. Which explained why Brittany had looked so fucking sad at the diner and was the only reason Puck spent almost $15 in quarters to win her a retarded looking unicorn from the claw machine.)

He wanted to go straight to Rachel's house and pass out but Quinn said something about lunch and as much as he wanted to tell her to 'fuck off', if he knew one thing and one thing only in his life, it was not to mess with a bride on the day before her wedding. He felt a little better after he'd eaten and was calculating how long a nap he could fit in between lunch and the wedding rehearsal. After figuring he'd get a solid three hours if he didn't shower, hews about to suggest they pack it in when Quinn reminded Rachel she needed to get fitted for her bridesmaid dress.

Rachel had cringed and looked over at him. She knew he was practically asleep on his feet and it didn't help that all through lunch she'd been running her fingers across the back of his neck. Legit, that shit always knocked him the fuck out. "None of the other guys are going. I think they're heading back to Finn's. You could go with them or I'm sure one of them would drop you off at mine. Quinn can take me home after the fitting," she offered and he was pretty sure he couldn't love her any more than he did in that moment right there.

"Nah," he groaned, standing up and grabbing her hand to help her out of the booth. "I'll go with you." She beamed up at him and he knew he'd just earned so many boyfriends points for that shit, which was cool because he wasn't even trying. Truth was, he really didn't feel like shooting the shit with Finn and the others right now and her dads were home. While he loved them and they actually for some strange reason loved him, they've never really spent a lot of time alone. Without Rachel.

He wouldn't be able to sleep anyway because he'd feel the need to talk and catch up with them cause it would just be rude to just show up, go to Rachel's room and pass the fuck out. And he couldn't go to his mom's house either because legit the second he moved to New York, she turned his room into a craft room. There was a fucking scrapbooking table where his desk used to be and a wrapping station where his bed had been and like baskets of fucking yarn all over the place.

The bridal shop wasn't so bad. They had this huge couch/bench that was so fluffy he actually fucking sighed when he sat down and he almost feel asleep right there and then. He would have too, if Santana hadn't elbowed him in the side when Rachel came out of the dressing room. She was wearing this pale pink dress with all these soft flowy layers that seemed to swirl around her and the thing was like five inches too long and two sizes too big in the bust but she still fucking rocked it so he smiled at her and she blushed and turned away.

"Up on the platform," the seamstress told her and Rachel nodded.

"I know the drill," she assured the woman, stepping up on the little raised dais.

"That's right, this is your fifth time being a bridesmaid, isn't it?" Santana asked and Puck elbowed her right back in the side, hard enough to earn a glare.

"Seventh," Rachel corrected her without any real trace of sadness in her voice.

"You've been a bridesmaid seven times?" Tina gawked at her and this time, Rachel did blush. But Tina was a girl and Puck didn't really know her well enough for physical violence so he grabbed the ridiculously lacy pillow from behind his back and threw it at her from across the room. He smirked when it hit her smack in the side of the head.

"What's that saying? Always a bridesmaid never a bride?" Mercedes said and he never understood how girls who were supposedly friends could be so cruel to each other, especially since two of the times she'd been a bridesmaid had been at their fucking weddings.

"Yeah, think we'll ever get to see you in a white dress?" Quinn added. Rachel shrugged her shoulders like it didn't really matter and all five of the girls turned and glared at him, like this was all his fault.

The thing was, he _wanted_ to see Rachel in a white dress just as much as they did; fuck, probably more. There was this one in the window - white with long lace sleeves and high neckline, as per Jewish custom, but it had this little trail of beads that wrapped around the skirt and they might have been jewels because they sparkled when the light hit them. He knew his mom would love it and for some reason, he did too; it was sort of sneaky sexy, like Rachel. He knew that sounded weird cause Rachel had shown him a picture of Quinn's gown which had like no back and was cut almost down to her belly button. But there was just something that happened when he pictured Rachel in the dress, a soft veil covering her face, walking down the aisle of their synagogue toward him, that just got him hot.

So yeah, he totally wanted to marry her. And maybe there was even a fucking ring in the bottom of his sock drawer that had been there for like a year. But every time he'd brought up marriage, she'd changed the subject or shrugged it off and he wasn't going to fucking ask if she was going to say no. He's pretty damn sure he wouldn't be able to handle that. So he just glared right back at the girls, hoping to psychically convey to them that actually, Rachel was the one dragging her feet on this whole marriage thing and if it were up to him, they'd be Mr. & Mrs. Puckerman with a baby on the way by now and then he stopped himself because seriously? _Baby_? He needed some fucking sleep.

So he wasn't real sure why, after they had gotten back to Rachel's house and caught up with her dads and she dragged him up to her room, he didn't just pass out. They had about an hour and half until the rehearsal, plenty of time for a refreshing nap. But then Rachel had said, "I'm going to take a nice long bath, unwind."

He had then stupidly said, "I'll join you."

Which is how he found himself in a too small bathtub full of lukewarm water with Rachel pressed up against his chest, _not_ getting hot bathtub sex because she said they didn't have time and _not _sleeping. And that was the problem – he was just _half_ asleep. He was fucking exhausted but he couldn't stop thinking about Rachel in that dress long enough to trick his body into sleeping. So he gave up and opened his eyes, staring at the back of Rachel's head. He seriously blamed sleep deprivation for the next words that came out of his mouth. "So you _are_ going to, like, marry me and shit someday, right?"

She stopped, the razor halfway up her shin and turned her head to look at him, her eyebrows raised. "Marry you and shit?" she repeated and he rolled his eyes.

"You know what I mean," he said, annoyed now. He was a fucking awesome boyfriend most of the time and she'd never, ever find someone who could give it to her as good as he could, like, in the universe so why the fuck wasn't she jumping to marry him?

"I certainly do not know what you mean," Rachel said. "And I sincerely hope, if you are at all attached to your beloved family jewels, that was not supposed to be a proposal." She finished shaving that leg and moved onto the other.

"Why do you always go after my junk when you're annoyed?" Puck groaned, it was seriously like her go-to threat and it usually fucking worked because even at her best, she was fucking crazy enough to do some shit like that. "And what if it was?"

"Really?" Rachel asked him, dropping the razor and shifting in the tub so that they were face to face, splashing water all over the bathroom floor as she settled her legs on either side of his hips. "Think about this really hard. Is this the story you want me to tell everyone? Because they'll ask you know. They'll say, '_Oh how did he propose?'_, they'll say, '_Was it romantic_?' and then I'll have to say, _Well_ _you see, we were in the tub, naked—_"

"So far, so good," he smirked, slipping his hands around her waist and behind her back so that he could pull her closer.

"—and I was shaving my legs—" Rachel continued.

"You could leave that part out if you want," he mentioned as he lowered his head to her collarbone.

"And he'd just let out this massive fart," Rachel said pointedly and he lifted his head up to look at her in surprise.

"Oh my god. You felt that?" he asked her and she rolled her eyes.

"It shook the tub, Noah!" Rachel slapped him on the chest and he laughed, throwing his head back.

"Epic," he said, amused and Rachel glared.

"No, it is not epic," she insisted. "When I'm telling our grandkids the story of our engagement, it will not contain nudity or flatulence of any kind. There will be candlelight and rose petals and soft music and you'll get down on one knee and—"

She was actually kind of annoyed at him but he couldn't really find it in him to care because she hadn't said no. She'd basically said, well, not the opposite of no, because that would be yes and she hadn't said that yet, but she hadn't said no. "You said when," he pointed out, cutting her off by kissing her softly. "And I believe you mentioned something about grandkids," he murmured against her lips.

"Your point, Noah?" Rachel asked.

"You _so_ want to marry me," he teased her. "You want to marry me and have my grandkids."

"I want to have your kids, actually, and then presumably, at some point, they will have your grandkids." Rachel corrected him.

"Whatever, you want to marry me." He smiled again.

"I don't understand how this can possibly be news to you. We've been together for almost 5 years now, we love each other."

"Maybe because every time I talk about it you just shrug it off," he pointed out.

"Because I just assumed it was a given," Rachel told him. "You've had the ring in the bottom of your sock drawer for a year."

"You know about the ring?"

"Yes." Rachel smiled brightly and kissed him on the cheek. "And you did a very good job picking it out. I love it!"

"So what, you just go through my shit?" Puck grumbled.

"I do your laundry," Rachel snorted. "How did you think your clean socks got into the drawer, Noah? The Sock Fairy?" She turned back around and leaned against his chest to resume shaving her legs.

He really couldn't get mad at her about that because yeah, she did do the laundry and she'd basically just agreed to marry him so whatever. She started humming again and he reached over the side of the tub to dig in the pocket of his pants. He popped a string on his guitar right before his set last night and he's pretty sure he just stuffed it in his pocket. He smiled when he found it and wrapped it around his finger a few times before tying the two ends together in a knot.

Rachel jumped a little when he grabbed her left hand and slipped the makeshift ring on her finger. "What's this?" she asked him.

"Guitar string," he shrugged. "It's just until we get back home and I can do it right or whatever."

She twisted around and kissed him hard, pushing herself on her knees and straddling his hips. "I thought you said we didn't have time," he frowned at her.

"I just got engaged." Rachel smiled down at him. "Quinn can wait."

Puck just smirked and grabbed her hips because yeah, getting engaged and hot bathtub sex in the same day – fucking _epic_.

When they showed up at the rehearsal 45 minutes late, Quinn was ready to tear into Rachel until she held out her hand and practically screamed, "Noah and I got engaged!"

Then there were squeals and jumping and hugging and a round of "Let's see the ring!" so Rachel showed them and they all just stared at it, confused. She ended telling them the whole story, flatulence and nudity included, and they fucking oohed and aahed over that shit so even naked and farting, he was a fucking stud.

And when they got back to New York, he did it right - with rose petals, candlelight and soft music and he got down on one knee with the ring from his sock drawer. But whenever anyone asks the story of how they got engaged, Rachel always blushes and says, "We were in the tub naked…"

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**August 2019**

"Hey." Rachel closed the door behind her and walked into the bathroom. Puck had called her and said Santana was off her fucking rocker, throwing shit and crying. Puck could deal with a lot of things but a sober crying Santana was just un-fucking-natural and Rachel needed to get to the apartment like 5 minutes ago. She'd been over at Santana's new apartment supervising the furniture delivery and the cable guy and they were supposed to be packing up Santana's stuff so it could be moved.

"Hey," Santana looked up, her smile a little forced. "He called you?"

"You threw a box of books at his head, declared you were never, ever leaving this apartment, then locked yourself in the bathroom." Rachel chuckled and sat down. "He's a little worried."

"Worried I'll never leave," Santana mumbled under her breath.

"Worried about _you_," Rachel corrected. "Want to tell me what happened?"

"I don't know," Santana huffed, annoyed. "I just…I love this apartment. It's the first place I lived in on my own, well not on my own completely but without my parents paying for it. I put a lot of work into it, like my own physical labor and I just…remember we said we'd never leave this place?" Rachel did remember. It was funny because at first, the two of them didn't even want this apartment.

Santana and Rachel were so over dorm life midway through sophomore year so before junior year they decided to pool their money and rent an apartment. Only between the two of them, they could barely afford anything. And then Puck had come with them to check out a place that _wished _it was clean enough to attract roaches and declared that there was no way there were living there. So they'd approached him about moving with them. Three people paying rent was always better than two and finally, he'd relented and then he'd found this place.

They weren't even going to go look at it when he showed them the ad It was almost $500 more than they'd wanted to spend but he said he'd get another job to pay the difference, that's how awesome it was and they just had to see it. So they went and weren't really that impressed. It was in a nice neighborhood and the kitchen was newish but small. The bedrooms were pretty decent sized but there were only two, which meant that she and Santana would have to share again. And for $500 more, they weren't really sold on the idea. Then he'd shown them the bathroom and both girls had said, "I'll take it," before they even stepped through the door.

The landlord really didn't care what they did to it as long as they lived there but if they ever moved out, they would have to pay to have anything he didn't like fixed. So they painted the whole place top to bottom. Then two months into living there, Rachel noticed a corner of her carpet was peeling up so she pulled it back a bit and squealed like a 13 year-old at a Justin Beiber concert. It took Puck fifteen minutes to calm her down long enough for her to explain that there was parquet hardwood floors under the nasty, dirty carpet.

Rachel and Santana spent three weekends tearing up all the carpet in the apartment and hauling it down to the dumpster by themselves because Puck said he didn't care what kind of floors they had. They spent another four weekends sanding and refinishing the floors by hand because Puck decided to wait until after they were done to tell them that there were machines you could rent that would sand the whole floor in a few hours. They suspected it was because he didn't want to be enlisted to carry said machine up the stairs.

After declaring that the skin on her hands was cracking and peeling from washing dishes all the time, Rachel spent money she didn't really have on a dishwasher. _That_ Puck did have to carry up the stairs and when it didn't fit because Rachel didn't realize there were different sizes, he said he wasn't going to carry it back down so he re-routed the electrical and the water then built a cabinet around it.

When they found out how handy he was with power tools, they convinced (or possibly tricked) him into building a custom closet organizer for them, complete with rotating shoe rack. When everything was said and done, Rachel and Santana declared the place perfect and said that they would never, ever leave.

"If your place has hardwood floors, I'll be over there every weekend sanding and staining it for you but we'll, you know, use the machine this time. And you don't need a dishwasher because you'll either eat here or out. I'm not even sure if you have any dishes." Rachel frowned. "And as for the closet organizer, I'm sure now that I have sexual favors with which to bribe him, Noah would be more than happy to make you one of your own."

"Look, it's not about the closet organizer, although I wouldn't say no to one of those shoe racks. It's just, I've already lost you to Puck." Santana grabbed Rachel's hand and slid her engagement ring back and forth. "And if I move out, I feel like…" she grunted in annoyance, dropping Rachel's hand to wipe the tears off her cheeks roughly.

"San, I love you," Rachel told her. "And I know it's not necessarily the way you might have wanted once upon a time but it's actually kind of insane _how much_I love you. There were even a few times in college that I thought if maybe you were a boy or if I was a bit more adventurous with my sexuality, there could have been more between us."

"We would have fucking rocked together," Santana smirked at her.

"Yes, I'm sure we would have," Rachel nudged her shoulder. "My point is just because you're moving out of the apartment, it doesn't mean you're moving out of my life."

"But I'm still moving out," Santana said. "We've lived together for eight years. You've always been right there when I needed you. I just don't know if I can do this without you."

"Now you're just being melodramatic," Rachel rolled her eyes. "You won't be without me. Your apartment is literally down the hall."

Santana smiled. "Yeah, have you told Puck that yet?"

"No," Rachel bit her lip. "But I'm not going to be able to keep it up much longer, he keeps asking me when the moving van is getting here." Santana laughed.

"So you really wanna going through with this whole marriage thing?" Santana asked and Rachel nodded with a smile. "Okay, but if you have to get married, does it have to be to Puck?" Santana wrinkled her nose.

"I'm pretty set on Noah at this point, yeah."

"Everything okay in there?" Puck called. "You've been in there a while."

"We're fine, Noah. Just give us a minute," Rachel called out and they could hear him through the door mumbling about crazy women and how he'd never be free of them.

"I just don't get it." Santana slid her arm through Rachel's then leaned back against the bathroom tile, pulling Rachel with her. "I mean, does he do all the things that I do for you?"

"I'm almost positive that I'm going to regret asking this but what exactly do you mean by that?" Rachel turned her head to look at her best friend.

"When you get your period, does he buy you that totally non-soy chocolate ice cream you secretly love and sit on your bed with you and watch old movies so that you can have a really good cry?"

"No," Rachel frowned. "In fact, when it's my time of the month, he usually just spends a few days at Kyle's place. He says it's for extra band practice but I'm not stupid."

"Does he take you to the pet store on Sundays to see all the new puppies and kitties they got in that week and let you go in and hold the bunnies then remind you why you can't have a bunny in the apartment when you try to buy five of them?"

"No," Rachel sighed. "He thinks bunnies are creepy. He doesn't like the way their noses twitch. Says it reminds him of the chick from Bewitched and his mom used to tell him that if he didn't clean his room, Samantha was going to come and replace him with a new kid, just like they did with the original Darren, and no one would ever know the difference."

"Would he ever go to all those method acting and free form hippie dance classes that you're always dragging me too?"

"I asked him once. He said he would rather be strapped to a table and have termites burrow their way into his small intestines through his urethra."

Santana snorted. "That sounds like Puckerman."

"Santana," Rachel said, her voice a little shaky.

"Yeah?" Santana tilted her head to look at Rachel.

"I don't want you to move out," Rachel said suddenly, tears falling from her eyes as she sat up, her voice slightly panicky. "I don't know what I was thinking. I can't live without you. You're the only one who can handle my crazy and if you leave," she sobbed a bit harder, "I'll have to live with _a boy_."

"Oh, sweetie," Santana grabbed her and pulled her into a hug. "You've _been_ living with Puck for almost as long as you've been living with me."

"But not alone," Rachel said, still crying. "I can't do this. He leaves his wet towels all over the bathroom floor. The hamper is a foot away from him but apparently, no, that's much too far. And he gets little dots of toothpaste all over the mirror when he brushes his teeth and he doesn't clean it off. He drinks my soy milk straight from the cartoon, which is doubly annoying because he says he hates soy milk. I think he might actually be allergic to doing laundry because when he doesn't have any clean underwear, he just doesn't wear any. He wouldn't wear any clothes at all if he didn't have to. He said the second you move out, he's instituting Naked Thursdays. I don't want Naked Thursdays." Rachel sobbed harder.

Santana just laughed and patted her back letting her cry. "Okay, now I hear crying. I'm coming in!" They heard something clink around in the lock and looked up just as the door pushed open. Puck was standing on his knees in the doorway, his shirt soaked with sweat, his hair clinging to his forehead.

Rachel sobbed even harder and clutched Santana. "He's a stinky sweaty boy, please don't leave me alone with him."

"What the fuck?" Puck grunted, glaring at Santana as she attempted to soothe Rachel again. "I sent her in here to fix your crazy ass, now why the hell is she crying?"

"We're having a private conversation, asshat, mind your own business." Santana glared at Puck.

"And just so you know, I'm fucking sweating because I've been packing up all your shit and taking apart _your_ bed!"

"Thanks," Santana said to his surprise. "Look, can you just give us a minute?"

"Whatever." Puck pulled the bathroom door closed.

"Rachel, honey." Santana pulled Rachel away from her. "Listen to me. You love Puck." Rachel rolled her eyes. "You _do_. It's actually kind of insane how much you love him. And as much as it pains me to admit this, you guys _actually_ do fucking rock together." Rachel chuckled through her tears. "With a bit of training, you can teach him to wipe the mirror and pick up his towels and well, I think secretly you really do want Naked Thursdays because he might be a stinky sweaty boy but he's a stinky sweaty boy with a hot body."

"His abs are quite lovely, as are his arms, and his ass," Rachel said, blushing.

"You don't have to tell me, I still remember." Santana smiled. "Probably the only guy I'd consider going straight for if, you know, he wasn't taken and a total ass 80% of the time. And that 20% when he's a nice guy, that's totally on you. You are like the best thing that ever happened to him. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be able to function without you in his life and not just because you're the only one who knows how to work the dishwasher."

"You put in the soap and you turn it on, it's not that difficult," Rachel huffed.

"And I'm not the only one that can handle your crazy, he does a pretty good job of it on his own. Though I _am_ a little better at it than him."

"Why can't I have you both?" Rachel asked sadly. "Maybe," Rachel sat up straighter and turned to face Santana. "Maybe we could all get married. The three of us."

"I'm pretty sure that's illegal." Santana laughed.

"But," Rachel's face fell. "Between the two of you, you guys would make the perfect husband."

"It's a great idea, Rachel, except for the whole sex thing." Santana pointed out.

"I could do the sex thing," Rachel said uneasily. "If it meant keeping you."

"You could do the sex thing?" Santana scoffed. "Rachel, it's not something you do to keep someone. It's something you do because you like it." Santana had learned that one the hard way back in high school with Brittany.

"I could like it!" Rachel said indignantly. "I mean, I've never actually done it but I love you so why wouldn't I like it?"

"It doesn't work that way," Santana shook her head.

"Prove it," Rachel crossed her arms over her chest. "Kiss me."

"I'm not going to—" Santana was cut off when Rachel grabbed her face and pressed her lips against on Santana's. She was surprised at first but she knew she probably wasn't going to get another chance at this so she let her hand slide into Rachel's hair, cradling the back of her head as she tilted her neck back to get a better angle. Santana's other hand drifted onto Rachel's waist and squeezed it slightly, letting her thumb rub lightly on Rachel's hip bone. She licked softly along Rachel's bottom lip and the girl opened her mouth, probably in surprise, but Santana was going to take it anyway, sliding her tongue along the roof of Rachel's mouth.

Santana pulled away, dropping one last soft peck on Rachel's lips and smiled. "So?"

Rachel sighed. "I'm sure I could _learn_ to like it."

Santana laughed and shook her head. "Come on. I've got an apartment to move into." She stood up and held her hand out to Rachel.

"Hey, can you at least be my honorary wife?" Rachel asked as she pulled herself to her feet.

"Duh, I kinda thought that's what I was already." Santana threw her arm over Rachel's shoulder. "Hey, can I tell Puck we made out?"

"Why don't we keep that between us?" Rachel offered and pulled the door open to find Puck standing there, his hand raised, ready to knock.

"Oh," he said, caught off guard. "So I ordered lunch from that vegan place on 9th that you like, it should be here soon. And look, I know you guys have whatever the girl equivalent of a 'bromance' is, I was thinking, instead of turning the spare room into a gym—"

"We were never going to turn the spare room into a gym." Rachel rolled her eyes.

"Instead of turning it into a gym, I thought we could like make it a guest room or whatever, so when you guys, like, miss each other, San could sleep over." Rachel's smile split her face and she launched herself at Puck, throwing her arms around his neck and squeezing tightly.

"I love you so much," she whispered in his ear.

Puck looked slightly uncomfortable as she pulled away. "Whatever, it's no big deal. I just figured that way, you guys could have a place to go to do whatever it is girls do together," Puck finished as Santana and Rachel looked at each other and then looked away. Puck noticed the blush rising on Rachel's neck and frowned. "Did I miss something?"

"Nope, nothing," Rachel slid her hand through his left arm and Santana slid her hand through his right. "You said something about lunch?"

"I'm totally missing something but neither of you are crying so I'm gonna drop it for now."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


	4. Chapter 4

**December 2019**

Puck stared into the mirror and frowned, re-adjusting the bow tie for the hundredth time that morning but it still wasn't straight. He groaned and pulled at the cloth, unraveling the knot to start over again. He could do this, he did this all the time. Between Glee club and going with Rachel to all her Broadway things he'd tied an insane amount of bowties for a juvenile delinquent from Lima, Ohio.

But this one was different and for the life of him he couldn't seem to get it right. "You sure you don't want me to do that for you?" Finn asked from the door way to the bathroom.

"I got it," Puck growled pulling the knot only to undo it again in frustration.

"Dude, your hands are shaking." Finn chuckled and Puck stopped to glare at him through the mirror.

"Fuck off," Puck smirked and Finn shook his head and walked back into the room.

Puck looked down at his hands which actually were shaking a bit, fucking Hudson, and forced himself to take a few deep breaths. He looked up at the mirror and into the room behind him. Mike and Artie were laughing at some story Kyle, the bassist in his band was telling and Kurt was putting in Finn's boutonniere because Finn had already poked himself like fifteen times with the pin and bled all over his tuxedo jacket. Finn screeched as Kurt poked him in the chest with the pin and Mike, Artie and Ryan laughed really loud and Puck's knuckles went white, bunching the silk bow tie in his fist.

He loved his friends, he really did and he wouldn't want anyone else there with him today but at this moment in time, he just wanted some peace and quiet.

"Hey, assmunchers, clear the room." Santanna said, throwing the door open and forcing her way inside. Puck relaxed against the sink, never had he loved Santana more than at that moment in time. He heard a few grumbles and then the door closed and finally there was quiet.

He turned around and leaned against the bathroom sink and then sunk down to the ground, relaxing for the first time that day. "Hey."

"Hey," Santanna slid to the floor next to him, smoothing out her dress.

"Is Rachel ok?" Puck asked, panicked for a second.

"She's fine," Santanna rolled her eyes and leaned her head back against the bathroom cabinet. "She was getting her make-up redone when I left." Puck raised his eyebrows in a question as to why Rachel's make-up would need to be redone. "Your mom gave her some pearl necklace that your great-grandma smuggled out of Germany in a loaf of bread or something and she just stared bawling."

Puck smiled. He knew what necklace she was talking about. His grandma used to tell them the story every Hanukah. How when her mom, his great-grandmother, found out she was pregnant, his great-grandfather sold everything they had and used the money to get them across the border and into Switzerland. His great-grandmother supposedly hid the pearls, which had been in the family forever, in a baguette and managed to smuggle it across the border with them.

Puck really hoped that his mom didn't tell Rachel the rest of the story which was that his great-grandfather, not knowing about the pearls 'cause he thought they'd sold everything, ate the baguette, along with the pearls. They had to wait a week for it to pass and apparently it was super painful. His mom swore they sterilized the thing with like industrial strength bleach, like the stuff they use at crime scenes, but still. That shit was kind of nasty.

He was pretty sure his mom was going to be buried in the thing so the fact that she was giving it to Rachel was serious. His mom went crazy when he told her that he and Rachel were finally together and practically had to be institutionalized when he told her they were getting married. He knew his mom loved Rachel but it wasn't until now that he really got that his mom _loved_ Rachel.

"So, I got you some wedding presents," Santanna said and he noticed the bag at her side for the first time. She reached in and pulled out two bottles and he laughed.

"Ok, so I get the tequila, but what's with the mouthwash?" Puck asked moving so that he was facing her.

"The Patron is so you relax a bit, make sure you don't do something stupid, like kill Finn," Santanna said opening the bottle and taking a swig before passing it over. Finn had been more annoying than usual today and Puck was starting to regret naming Finn as his best man. But Rachel had called dibs on Santanna literally like five minutes after he proposed (which was like two minutes into some seriously hot bathtub sex and he was too torn between being turned on and annoyed that she was thinking about Santanna during sex so he just agreed with her).

Puck took a long swing of the tequila, gagging a bit as it went down and laughed. "And the mouthwash?"

"Ah, the Listerine is so Rachel doesn't kill us when the Rabbi says, "_You may kiss the bride," _and she tastes the tequila." Santanna said sagely.

"You totally should have been my best man," Puck said taking another swig and Santanna smirked at that. She basically _had_ been. She'd completely taken over the bachelor party when she found out that Finn was just planning on buying a few rounds at Lima's local sports bar. Puck didn't complain though because it was legit the most epic two days in Vegas since the Hangover. Seriously, shit went down that no one was ever going to talk about again. Kurt and Santanna still couldn't look each other in the eye after Puck found them passed out, naked, obviously post-coital in the hot tub. Still the annulment went through pretty easily and now they both had that experience to look back on.

"You know it," Santanna held out her fist and Puck hit it with his.

"You're gonna be there right?" Puck asked, looking up at her as she passed the bottle back.

"Dude, don't worry. I'm gonna be right up there next to Rachel, making damn sure you don't like mess up your lines or whatever, so chill." Santanna nudged his shoulder with hers.

"I think I've got this, but thanks. I meant, like, after." Puck looked up at her sheepishly, spinning the bottle around the floor. "You're gonna be there right? Cause like, I don't know if I can do this without you. I mean I might screw up and if I do I'm gonna need you there to make sure that Rachel doesn't like leave me and that I don't do something stupid and make things worse or whatever."

"Oh honey," Santanna smiled at him and put a soft hand on his shoulder. "There is no if. You're gonna screw up. A lot. Like seriously _a lot_, I mean like there are gonna be times you screw up and you don't even know it." Puck glared at her. "But don't worry because I'll be there to tell you when that happens, and I'll be there to talk you down when Rachel's crazy reaches dangerously high levels and to kick you in the nuts when you screw up." Puck laughed.

"Thanks," he sighed in relief.

Santanna pulled herself to her feet before pulling Puck up beside her. She grabbed his bowtie and started tying it for him. "Look, I fucking love you guys or whatever and it's cute that you thought you might have a marriage that didn't involve me but that's not gonna happen." She patted his cheek a bit harder than she probably needed to and then handed him the tequila. "One more shot," Puck complied taking a quick swig. "Mouthwash," she took the Patron and swapped it for the Listerine. Puck swished and spit and then blew in Santanna's face for a breath check.

"I think I'm ready," Puck nodded.

"Alright, let's go get married," Santanna headed for the door and Puck wanted to remind her that _he _was getting married, him and Rachel, not him, Rachel, and Santanna, but honestly he'd be kidding himself. Somehow it had always been the three of them and it should really be a lot weirder than it actually was but it worked so he wasn't gonna be the one to rock the boat. "Oh and you know me and your future wife?" Santanna turned around when they got to the door. "We totally made out a few months ago."

Puck glared at her for a second, "I'm torn right now between being incredibly turned on and seriously pissed."

"Go with incredibly turned on," Santanna shrugged. "I am." Santanna smacked his ass playfully before walking back to Rachel's room and Puck laughed.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**March - 2022**

Puck splashed his face with a handful of cold water, not even caring that it dripped down the front of his shirt. He was fucking hot. He'd been on stage for two hours. It was supposed to be a 45-minute set but the manager came up to him when he was done and said the guys who were going on after them got into a huge fight backstage (the lead singer was banging the drummer who was apparently married to the bassist). They'd split up, no more band and the manager needed to fill another hour-long set.

He was exhausted but exhilarated at the same time. They hadn't prepared a two-hour set so when they went back up there, they did the whole thing off the cuff. Puck would just start playing a song, any song, and within two or three chords the guys were backing him up, almost like they knew what he was going to play before he played it. They were more in sync than they'd ever been and it was like the crowd could tell. People were going wild, which just made the guys play harder, which just made the crowd even wilder.

When he'd started the band back in his senior year of college, it had just been for fun, just something to do on the weekends when Rachel had dance classes and vocal lessons. None of them took it too seriously, just playing in each other's living rooms once a week. Then Rachel had gotten her first real role and she was at the theater more and more, so Puck started instigating 'jam sessions' more and more. Then one of the guys said he had a buddy that bartended at this dive in Alphabet City and they were always looking for bands.

They'd never really discussed actually playing but the more he thought about it, the more Puck liked the idea. He'd never admit it but he missed being on stage, missed performing like back in high school with the glee club. So he'd talked the others into it. The pay was shit but the beer was free and they only played covers but the rush was unforgettable. They started doing more and more gigs and eventually, they started getting paid actual money, too.

In four years, he went through three drummers, two bassists and one back-up guitarist but they finally found a combination that seemed to work pretty well. Then one day Puck came in with a song he'd been messing with and they worked on it together and suddenly, they were writing music. One night, they played an original song and the crowd actually liked it. So the next gig they played a few original songs and pretty soon, their whole set was original and Puck started thinking they were a real band.

This was why he did this – nights like tonight with just him and his band up there on the stage, feeding off the energy of the crowd and playing like the devil himself was on their tails, with his wife out there, screaming and cheering louder than anyone else. Speaking of his wife, he turned around when the bathroom door opened and she slipped inside, a huge smile on her face and her cheeks still red from excitement.

"Here," she said, pulling a bottle of water out of her bag and tossing it to him. It was still fucking cold and that's why he loved her. He gulped the whole thing down in one go then tossed the empty bottle in the trash.

"You're the best," he smiled up at her.

"That was…amazing. I've never seen you play like that. It's like you _knew_." She took two steps and grabbed his face in her hands, smashing her lips against his. She always did love to watch him perform. Some of the best sex they ever had was after gigs, her all hot and bothered from watching him on stage and him full of leftover adrenaline from the show.

She was sliding her hands up the back of his shirt when something she'd said pushed its way through the haze of lust in his brain. "Wait, what?" Puck pulled back a little. "Knew what?"

Rachel sighed and bit her lip. "Okay, you can't get mad at me."

"Why don't I ever like it when you start shit with that sentence?" Puck sighed and leaned against the sink.

"No, I think you'll like this. Well, I _hope_ you'll like this," Rachel sighed. "And I know you hate it when I use my 'influence' to get stuff, which I don't think I do because I'm not sure I actually have any 'influence', but you say I use it all the time so I want you to know that I absolutely did not do that. I had no idea who he was and he certainly had no idea that you were my husband. I swear."

"Rach, cut to the chase," Puck smirked slightly. She did too use her 'influence' to get stuff. Which he thought was cool when it got them first class seats on flights or that time they got upgraded from a regular suite to the Sky Villa at the Palms in Vegas. It was totally not cool when he'd come home completely psyched because he got a call from the studio he worked at that his current favorite band requested _him_ to be their session guitarist and he was greeted with, _"Yeah, their agent is friends with my agent and he mentioned they were looking for someone while they were in town so I recommended you."_

That was a huge fight. He said he was going to call and decline. She asked why and he told her he thought he'd gotten the job because he was good, that they'd somehow heard of him and wanted him. She said they did hear about him, they heard about him from her. He said no, they heard about him from their agent who heard about it from _her_ agent who heard about it from her. She wanted to know what the difference was and he said when she 'recommends' something to her agent, he would take it to mean, _This is what I want, make it happen by any means necessary because I basically pay your rent_.

She told him that was ridiculous, that _he_ was being ridiculous and there was no way he was cancelling because if he cancelled, it would look bad for her. They screamed for another hour and he spent two days on Santana's couch. In the end, he'd done the session and it had been one of the best moments in his life. They talked and she said she still didn't understand what the big deal was if she helped him get his foot in the door. Once he was there, he could prove he was the right person for the job but if it bothered him that much, she would never do it again.

He thanked her, apologized for getting so upset about it, and they had awesome make up sex. Later that night in bed, he told her he wouldn't mind if she used her 'influence' every now and then but only in Epic Musical Emergencies. Like if Led Zeppelin ever got back together and decided to do another studio album and happened to need a session guitarist or, you know, other situations similar to that. She laughed and said she'd have her agent be on the lookout for that but he probably shouldn't hold his breath because she was pretty sure John Bonham died in the 80's.

After he jumped her again, because honestly, it was totally hot that she not only knew John Bonham was dead but she knew enough about Zeppelin to know who the hell John Bonham was, he pointed out that John's son Jason could totally take his place so it wasn't completely out of the realm of possibility.

"Okay, so a few of the cast wanted to go out for drinks after the show and I said I already had plans. They asked what and I said I was going to see your band and they sort of invited themselves along because they said they'd never seen you play," Rachel took a deep breath and Puck raised his eyebrows cause so far nothing was too terribly bad. "And one of the girls invited her boyfriend and a few of his friends to meet us here and I swear I had no clue one of them was an A&R Manager for Epic Records until he was asking if we knew anything about the band and then one of the guys – _not me_ – told him that you were my husband. So he asked me if you had a manager and you don't, which I've told you over and over you need, so he started talking to me about how I thought you'd feel about coming in and playing for a few people. We talked for a while and nothing is set in stone, I mean, he's got to meet the band first, but I'm almost pretty sure that he wants to sign you guys."

"Wait, back up," Puck said, trying to process everything but she was doing that thing she did when she excited or nervous where her words came out like a mile a minute. "One of the girls from the theater's boyfriends—"

"Boyfriend's friend," she corrected. "Brian."

"Boyfriend's friend is an A&R guy at Epic Records and he wants to meet with us?" Rachel nodded. "And you think he might want to sign us?"

"I'm like 97% sure he mentioned the words 'record' and 'deal' in the same sentence." Rachel smiled hugely as Puck finally understood what that meant.

"A record deal?" he whispered.

"And I had nothing to do with it I swear," Rachel held up her hands. When he didn't say anything, she frowned. "Is this a good thing?"

Puck actually had to think about that. He had always told her that the band wasn't about 'being a band'. It was never supposed to be about making it, about record deals or world tours. He had a job, well, two jobs actually. Most of his time was spent playing sessions for a few of the record companies around town and occasionally that led to a gig as a backup guitarist for some live events. It paid well and he'd been lucky to get pretty steady work but there were times when there just weren't any sessions available so he supplemented that by teaching guitar.

He had started out teaching a class three times a week at the local community college but then he found out he could make a lot more giving solo lessons and now he actually made more teaching then he did doing session work. He liked doing both though. It was nice to get a break from teaching spoiled rich kids in the Upper East Side to play Smoke on the Water and just chill out in the studio.

So it's true he hadn't actively sought it out but shit, he wasn't stupid. If an A&R guy from Epic fucking Records wanted him to come in and play for some people and maybe talk about a record deal, he wasn't going to be stupid enough to say, _"No, thanks. I'm happy just playing in shithole bars."_

"This is definitely a good thing," Puck said, letting the idea sort of settle over him.

"You're not mad?" Rachel asked, unsure.

"Baby, you just told me that you accidently got me a fucking record deal," Puck laughed at her. "I'm so far from mad, it's not even funny." She smiled brightly and he couldn't help laughing before sliding his arms around her waist, lifting her up in the air and spinning her around. "A fucking record deal," he repeated before setting her down and capturing her lips in a kiss.

It was like that one little kiss opened up the floodgates and suddenly, all the adrenaline he was feeling when she first walked in was back. Plus on top of that was the excitement over the prospect of a record deal and she was obviously feeling the same way because before he even knew what was happening, she'd slipped her hands under his shirt, dragging her nails down his abs in a way that she knew drove him fucking crazy.

"Baby," he gasped into her mouth but he just felt her lips smirk against his as her fingers moved down to his belt buckle, flipping it open one-handed and shoving his pants down to his knees. "Wait," he panted against her shoulder even as he slipped the strap of her sundress down. They were in the bathroom. He's pretty sure people were going to start to wonder where they were and possibly even come to look for them. Plus there was some guy out there who wanted to give him a record deal.

None of that mattered when Rachel took a few steps back and slipped her hands up under her dress. He saw her hips shake a bit and then she was pulling her panties down to her knees, stepping out of them one leg at a time. He'd been bitching about the fucking heat wave they'd been having for the past three weeks because the air conditioning in their apartment was temperamental at best but right now he was so fucking grateful that she wasn't wearing jeans and boots or, even worse, tights.

It only took one of _his_ steps and she was back in his arms then he had her backed up against the bathroom door and her legs were wrapped around his waist. Then she whispered, "My husband, the rock star," in his ear and he was pushing inside of her with no warning. She didn't seem to mind if the gasp that turned into a deep moan was any indication. Her hands were clutching at his shoulders and he was using all of his strength to make sure the both of them didn't collapse to the ground. She was making these sounds in the back of her throat that he'd never heard her make before and she'd managed to find this spot just under his jaw that buckled his knees for just a second, and how in the hell after all this time did he _not_ know that was there?

He would have been embarrassed at how quickly the whole thing was over if it hadn't also been the hottest fucking sex ever. "I think you broke me," Rachel whispered, her whole body draped against him.

He laughed. "That's like…seriously awesome babe but I just played a two hour set then had the most amazing sex ever—"

"Yeah, you did," Rachel lifted her head up and he smiled.

"—but I'm pretty sure I'm two seconds away from dropping you so if you could just…" He looked down at her and she kissed him softly before sliding her legs to the ground and standing up. He grabbed some paper towels so they could clean up a bit and then pulled his pants back up just as Santana burst through the bathroom door.

"Hey, you guys have been in here forever. Brian's getting bored and I'm fucking starving so we're going out for waffles."

"I could murder some waffles," Puck said, his stomach growling in agreement.

Rachel ducked out of the bathroom and Puck slung an arm around Santana's shoulder pulling her to the door. "What's with the touching?" she narrowed her eyes at him. "And the creepy smile?"

"I can't be in a good mood?" Puck asked her and she rolled her eyes. He thought about it a second then flipped his right leg to the side, smacking her in the butt with his shoe hard.

"What the hell was that for?" she grunted, stumbling a bit.

"You know what that was for," Puck grunted and she smirked because she totally did. Santana had this strange ability to know every time Puck and Rachel had sex, like _every fucking_ _time,_ and she never failed to show up at the exactly the right moment to ruin his post-sex high and he knew she did it on purpose. He was halfway convinced she had some sort of secret tracking device on his junk that let her know whenever it got within a foot of Rachel.

**::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::**

**April - 2022**

"Ezra?"

"No. Avi?"

"No. Hiram?"

"Definitely not. What about Levi?"

"I don't think so. Micha?"

"Nope."

"What the hell kind of lame ass names are those?" Santana asked from the doorway, interrupting Puck and Rachel. Rachel was lying in the middle of the bathroom, flat on the floor, Puck lying on her right side, his cheek resting softly on her stomach.

"They're Hebrew," Rachel and Puck said at the same time.

Santana walked over and handed Rachel the newly refilled bottle of water and then plopped back down on the ground. She laid her head right next to Puck's on Rachel's stomach, their noses practically touching and he glared at her. "Whatever. Like seriously, if you name your kid Ezra, he's gonna come home with his underwear in his ass crack until he's 20."

"What do you suggest?" Rachel asked, almost amused.

"Explain to me again why we're letting her suggest anything?" Puck asked, playfully kicking Santana's leg away from his. "This is _our_ baby, Rach."

"It's my baby too," Santana protested.

"Yeah, except that it's not." Puck snorted. "In any way shape or form. I'm pretty sure I'd remember if you had any part in its conception." Puck had a sudden flashback to that bathroom a month ago, pressing Rachel against the door, gasping his name.

"Guys, we don't even know if there is a baby yet."

"Come on, Rach, six pregnancy tests can't be wrong." Puck lifted his head up and rested his chin on her stomach to look at her. "You've been sick and emotional and your boobs have totally gotten bigger. What's it going to take for you to see?"

"Seven," Rachel said, gulping down half the water bottle. "Seven home pregnancy tests and then I'll make the doctor's appointment."

"Come on, don't you have to pee yet?" Santana asked her.

"Nope," Rachel shook her head and took another long swig of water. "What about Seth?"

Puck paused. "I don't hate Seth."

"How come you guys are only tossing around boy names? What if it's a girl?"

"Caroline," they both said at the same time and Santana rolled her eyes at them.

"You guys are so lame," she said, kicking Puck's ankles.

"Oh," Rachel said suddenly sitting up and dislodging the both of them from her stomach. "There it is." She hurried over to the toilet, grabbing the seventh pregnancy test off the counter as she went. When she was finished she set the timer on her phone and laid back down on the ground, Santana and Puck both resuming their original position on her stomach.

"What if it's positive?" Rachel asked.

"Seeing as how the other six were positive, I'm gonna go ahead and call this one," Puck snorted.

"I mean, what if it's positive?" Rachel propped herself up on her elbows to look down at him. "It means that we're having a baby. Like a _baby_."

Puck sat up and frowned at her. "Would that be such a bad thing?"

"No, I don't know. I guess not." Rachel huffed in frustration. "What about my job? What about money? Do you know how much a baby costs? Are we even ready for a baby? We just got married and you're going to start working on your album soon which will lead to concerts and touring around the world and-"

"First of all, I haven't even gotten in the studio yet, you're getting a little ahead of yourself with the concerts and world tours Rach," Puck pointed out and she softened a bit. "And if—_if_—that happens, we'll figure it out."

"Ok," Rachel took a breath.

"And, I'm ready," Puck said honestly. "I know we've only been married a year but I'm ready. And you're between shows right now anyway and you said you kind of wanted a break. We actually make pretty good money, Rach. It might get tight sometimes but we've lived through that before and we can do it again if we need to. Sticky fingers aside, you do want kids, right?"

Rachel smiled at the fact that he remembered that nightmare from so long ago. "I mean, I guess I have been talking about taking some time off and I'm not getting any younger, and while theoretically I haven't always wanted kids, lately I've found myself sort of wanting _your_ kids. It's just now that the possibility is quite real, I find that I'm scared."

"Of what?" Puck scooted a bit closer to her.

"I never had a mom," Rachel said quietly. "I don't know what moms _do_. I've prepared myself diligently for every step that I've taken in my career to make sure that I was the best but I never prepared for this."

"No one prepares for this," Puck laughed softly at her. "It just happens and then you deal with it the best way you know how and if there's one thing I know about you, it's that your best is like ten times better than anyone else's good. Look, you set out to make New York and Broadway your bitch and you totally did that. So I know that if you really set your mind to it, you can do the same thing with motherhood."

"Make it my bitch?" Rachel smirked at him.

"Yeah, well, whatever." Puck rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean."

"It would be nice, to have a little baby," Rachel said. "Maybe one with your eyes."

"And your lips," Puck kissed her softly.

"And your…badassness." Rachel teased him.

"Definitely your voice." Puck said.

"And my nose." Santana chimed in and they both turned to her. "Come on, you have to admit that out of the three of us, I have the best nose."

"Look, how many times do I have to tell you that you—" Rachel put a hand on Puck's arm and shook her head.

"Let her have this one," Rachel said softly and he rolled his eyes and laid back down on her stomach. Rachel's phone beeped a minute later and she took a deep breath and looked at the test. Just like the six before it, the electronic screen read 'pregnant'. "I'll call the doctor in the morning." Rachel said and Puck smiled, tilting his head to drop a kiss on her stomach and bringing a hand up to lay over her belly button.

"Hello in there," he whispered softly, his fingers rubbing gently across her abdomen. "I'm your dad. We're not gonna officially meet for another nine months but I'm gonna talk to you and I'm gonna sing to you and you're totally gonna know my voice by the time you get out of there."

"You do know that if there is a baby, it's basically still an egg sac. It doesn't have ears or anything yet," Rachel chuckled, slipping her hand into the hair on top of Puck's head and lightly scraping her nails along his scalp.

"Please don't call my baby an egg sac," he said and Rachel laughed.

"Fuck," Santana said suddenly. "You're going to have a baby."

"Yeah, San, we've been talking about that for like two hours," Puck said. "Where have you been?"

"No, I mean you're gonna _have_ a baby." She sat up, her eyes wide. "Like physically. You're gonna get huge! And then you're gonna have to push this eight pound thing out of your…" she trailed off, her face kind of pale at the thought. "Puckerman, you'll be happy to know that any lingering physical attraction I might have had for your wife—totally gone now."

He laughed as Rachel smacked her upside the head. "You know what this means huh?" Rachel asked her.

"That your shit's gonna get stretched out so bad—"she was cut off when Rachel smacked her again.

"No." she glared at the other woman. "It means that you're finally actually going to have to give up your room. We're gonna need a nursery after all."

"It's cool," Santana shrugged. "I'll share."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**December 2022 – McKinley High 10 Year Reunion**

The reunion was long since over but the Gleeks hadn't really been ready to end the party so Will had suggested they reconvene in the choir room. Mike and Sam had gone out and grabbed a couple of 12-packs plus some wine for the ladies and now it was nearing 2 am.

Puck leaned back in his old seat up on the second level of the risers, lifting the front legs off the ground, and he slowly sipped at his beer and listened to Finn tell everyone the story of how he and Puck got high off their assess and then drove to Carmel to slash the Vocal Adrenaline douches' tires back in sophomore year after they egged Rachel.

He'd heard the story like a hundred times – hell, he'd told the story like two hundred times – but seriously, Finn totally baked and trying to be stealthy will never not be funny. The dude was even clumsier if that was even possible. They hadn't even gone over there to slash their tires, they were just gonna egg their rehearsal space, but Finn had been trying to do some James Bond/Jason Bourne tuck-and-roll shit with his pocket knife held out like a gun and he'd totally slammed into the car, his knife going straight into the tire.

As they watched the tire deflate (which was the most awesome thing they'd ever seen in that way that everything in the world is the most awesome thing you've ever seen when you're high), they looked at each other at the same time and decided that was so much better than their previous plan and dropped the eggs, opting to slash the tires instead. In the long run, the egg thing would have been cheaper but ultimately not as satisfying.

He was laughing as Finn tried to play off his accidental tire puncture as totally planned when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, confused, and stared down at the text message on his screen.

_**Rachel*: **__URGENT! I currently find myself marooned in the front hall bathroom and may possibly require assistance as I am almost certain my water just broke._

Puck stared at the screen in shock as he pushed through the Rachel speak trying to get to the heart of the matter. He managed to make out 'water' and 'broke' just as another text came through.

_**Rachel*:**__ THIS IS NOT A DRILL. I just experienced a rather unpleasant contraction. It would be most appreciated if you would call an ambulance. And tell them to bring drugs. LOTS of drugs._

"Oh, fuck," Puck said, surprised, and in his haste to stand up, he ended up pushing his chair all the way backwards, which caused him to flip and roll down the risers.

"Puck!" Brittany screamed from his side and everyone ran over to make sure he was alright.

"Call a fucking ambulance," Puck told them, trying to untangle himself from the chairs he taken down with him.

"Are you hurt? Did you break something? Is there blood? I'm not good with blood." Brittany asked worriedly.

"It's not for me," Puck managed to say as he pulled himself to his feet.

"Oh God," Finn said standing with Puck's phone in his hand. It had gone flying when he fell backward and Finn had picked it up for him and seen the text. "Rachel's having the baby."

"What?" Santana grabbed the phone and read the texts, her smile widening with each word she read. "She's in labor and still manages to text in complete sentences, and sound so…Rachel."

"I've got 911," Tina said and handed Puck her phone.

"Yes, my wife is labor," Puck said storming out of the choir room. The rest of the Gleeks, for lack of anything better to do (and because seriously, Rachel was in labor) followed him. They found him pacing outside the front hall bathroom and stopped as he practically screamed at the 911 operator. "What do you mean it'll be a few hours? How can it take a few hours to get here? It's two in the morning, how many other emergencies do you have in Lima, Ohio at two in the fucking morning that you can't get here for two hours?"

"Okay, that's not helping." Kurt grabbed the phone from Puck's hands and took over the conversation. Puck looked as if he wanted to go after him but Santana put a hand on his arm.

"Go check on your wife," she told him and it was as if he just remembered Rachel was in the bathroom. In labor.

"Fuck." Puck turned around and slammed through the door to find her crouched in the corner, her head down, her breathing heavy as a contraction wracked her body. He stepped over the large puddle by the sinks and walked over to her, kneeling down in front of her. "Baby?"

"Noah!" Rachel looked up and smiled. She was sweating already. "Is the ambulance coming? Did you tell them to bring the drugs? Please tell me they're bringing the drugs."

"There's a little problem with the ambulance," Puck told her cautiously as Kurt came in the bathroom, the gleeks behind him.

"Okay, so they're snowed in." Kurt said.

"The ambulance?" Rachel panted and Kurt nodded.

"When did it start fucking snowing?" Puck asked.

"There were some light flurries when we went for beers earlier," Mike explained. "But it wasn't too serious."

"Well, it's serious now. We've gotten more than 6 inches in the past few hours and it just keeps coming. The storm came out of nowhere and they weren't really expecting it. They're trying to get the roads plowed but it's taking some time."

"Okay, well if they won't come to us, then we'll go to them," Puck said. "Come on, Rach, we'll go to the car and I'll drive you."

"Puck, what part of 6 inches of snow didn't you understand?" Kurt asked.

"No, I don't want you to drive in the snow." Rachel shook her head frantically. "I'll just wait for the ambulance."

"It could be a few hours," Kurt said.

"Okay, that's ok, I can do this for a few hours." Rachel said her face screwing up in pain. She stuck her hand out and Puck grabbed it and then she squeezed as she breathed tensely.

"Holy fuck, Rach!" Puck yelped in surprise as he dropped to his knees on the ground from the pain. After a minute, she lessened her grip and Puck took his hand back, shaking it frantically.

"See, that wasn't so bad," Rachel smiled.

"Rachel." Sam stepped forward and she turned her attention to him. "How long have you been in labor?"

"My water broke about ten minutes ago," Rachel panted. "When I texted Noah."

"Yeah, but how long have you been in labor?" Sam asked again and Rachel bit her lip.

"What?" Puck looked between Rachel and Sam confused.

"Her contractions are a little under two minutes apart." Sam said. "You've been having them all day, haven't you?"

"Rachel?" Puck turned to his wife.

"Not all day," Rachel shook her head. "They started a little after lunch."

"You've got to be kidding me," Puck leaned up against the wall. "You've been in labor all day and didn't tell me?"

"I thought it was just gas at first. They barely even hurt," Rachel said. "But as the night wore on, they got stronger. I just assumed it was okay because my water hadn't broken yet."

"Rach. When you go into labor, you freakin' tell me." Puck said to her.

"Well, I will take that into account the next time this happens," Rachel said, gritting her teeth as another contraction started. "That is, if I ever let you get close enough to impregnate me again and the likelihood of that is dwindling with every contraction, just so you know."

"Okay," Sam stepped closer into the bathroom. "The ambulance is not going to make it in time. Rachel, I need you to lay down. This baby's coming and it's coming now."

"Now?" Rachel looked up at him. "Like _now_ now?"

"Yeah." Sam smiled softly at her then turned around. "Will, do you think you could round up a few blankets, maybe some pillows?"

"Sure, no problem."

"Also can you get into the nurse's office? I'm going to need some gloves, antiseptic wipes, a blood pressure cuff would be nice and I'd kill for a fetal heart rate monitor but the likelihood of a school nurse having one is way too much. God, I hope the school nurse doesn't need a fetal heart rate monitor—"

"Wait, hold on," Puck stood up and grabbed Sam's arm, pulling him into the hallway and nodding at Santana to take his place with Rachel. "Out, everyone just…fucking out." They backed out, leaving Santana and Rachel alone in the bathroom. "Give her some privacy okay and you," he turned to Sam. "You just stay away from her." Puck moved to go back into the bathroom and Sam grabbed his arm.

"I'm a doctor, Puck. I can help. It's not like I haven't—"

"Don't say it," Puck got right into his face, crowding him. "Don't you dare say it's not like you haven't seen it before because I've been waiting almost ten years for an excuse to hit you again."

"I was going to say that it's not like I haven't delivered a baby before," Sam said calmly. "I have. Quite a lot of them."

Puck sighed and took a step back. "I get that, I do. But it doesn't change the fact that you've barely spoken five words to her since that night. Hell, you've barely made eye contact tonight. Do you know she asked me earlier why you still hated her? So explain to me how I'm supposed to forget all that and just let you go in there when she's scared and in pain? No, I can't—"

"I was an ass," Sam said cutting him off. "I know that. I was an ass in practically every sense of the word. I was also 19 years old, standing there after one of the best nights of my life and the girl that I was pretty sure I had fallen in love with was standing right next to me, screaming to Santana about how sleeping with me was the worst mistake of her life and how she never wanted to do it again ever."

"You were in love with her?" Puck asked him torn between feeling sorry for the guy and wanting to punch him again.

"I didn't really make many friends when I went off to college and then Rachel started e-mailing me and I e-mailed her back and then she started calling and before I knew it, I was talking to her more than anyone who was actually at school with me. That summer I was working up the nerve to ask her how she felt about long distance relationships when one stupid drunken night ruined everything," Sam said. "You got the girl, Puck. You have no idea what it feels like to know the woman you're ass over feet in love with will never feel that way about you. So I ran. I was embarrassed and it was a mistake and if you think that I haven't paid for that mistake by not having Rachel in my life for the past ten years, then you're an idiot." Puck sighed, because he could understand what if felt like to think the woman you loved would never love you.

"Your wife is in labor," Sam continued. "She's going to have this baby here, tonight, without the epidural and it's going to be painful. I'm not sure you understand exactly how painful. She has to literally tear her own body apart to get that child out. Now do you want my help or not?" Puck nodded and took a step back. "Okay," Sam took a deep breath. "So where are we on those supplies?"

"I can get the pillows and blankets," Will said. "But I can't get the other stuff. I don't have my keys."

"Have they changed the locks since we were here?" Puck asked and Will shook his head so he dug in his pockets and pulled out his key chain. "I don't remember which one it is."

"You have a key to the nurse's office?" Will asked him, taking the key chain.

"Sometimes I needed to take naps when she was on her lunch break," Puck shrugged.

Five minutes later, Rachel was propped up on every single pillow from the drama department, a blanket draped over her knees. Santana was on her right and Puck was on her left, both of them were holding one of her hands. The glee club had been banished out into the hallway and were currently doing what they did best; singing, in the hopes that it might calm Rachel down. Sam pulled on a pair of rubber gloves and looked up at her. "Rachel? Look, about what happened—"

"Sam, I heard what you said to Noah earlier, you were being quite loud. And while it's painfully obvious that we need to talk about what happened between us, this is not a conversation I really feel comfortable having when you are about to stick your hands into my birth canal."

Sam laughed as Rachel smiled at him. "I've missed you."

"This is very sweet, really I'm getting a toothache over here, but we're sort of in the middle of having a baby here," Santana reminded them.

"Right," Sam took a deep breath and Rachel wrinkled up her nose in discomfort as he checked to see how dilated she was. "You're having a girl right?" he asked to distract her.

"Caroline," Rachel nodded. "Her name is Caroline."

"That's a very pretty name," Sam said pulling his hand out and smiling at her. "Alright, I think you're ready to push so when your next contraction hits I want you to push as hard as you can, okay?"

It only took three pushes to get Caroline out, which Sam assured Rachel was very, very good for a first time mom. He wrapped her up and dropped her on Rachel's chest for just a second before taking her away to lay her under the stage lamps they'd set up in the corner to warm her as he cleaned her off. "She was beautiful, wasn't she?" Rachel sobbed as Puck pressed a kiss to the side of her head. "Wasn't she beautiful?"

"She was perfect," Santana said.

"Dude," Puck looked up at her. "Are you crying?"

"Shut up," Santana wiped at her eyes. "We just had a baby, asshat, of course I'm fucking crying."

"Uh…" Sam paused and they all turned to see him frozen, staring down at the baby.

"What?" Rachel sat up straighter. "What's going on? Is she ok? Is something wrong? Is she missing a toe? I forgot to count her toes."

"No, everything's fine," Sam rushed to assure her. "Ten fingers, ten toes, it's just…you said you were having a girl?"

"Yeah." Puck stood up and walked over to Sam. "Shit," Puck said. "She has a penis. Why does she have a penis?"

"Because she's a he," Sam smiled. "Congratulations, it's a boy."

"A boy?" Rachel squeaked. "But no, that's not right, we're having a girl. The doctor told us we were having a girl."

"It's a common mistake," Sam laughed. "Little boys can be very shy."

"But we bought girl stuff," Rachel said a little hysterically. "Everything we have is girl stuff – girl clothes, girl toys. The nursery is _pink_! We can't have a boy!"

"But you do," Sam smiled setting the baby on her chest again and all of Rachel's protests died in her throat as the baby blinked then opened up his eyes, staring at her.

"Hey baby," Rachel whispered, laughing even as tears streamed down her cheeks. She looked up at Puck. "It's a boy."

"Yeah, it is," Puck reached out and ran his fingertip down the baby's little nose.

"We don't have a name for a boy." Rachel pointed out. They'd still been stuck on the boy name when the doctor said it was a girl so they just gave up. "He needs a name. When we get to the hospital he needs a name. I don't want him to just be Baby Boy Puckerman."

"Okay," Puck settled in next to her as Sam moved to clean Rachel up. "Do you remember what were leaning towards?"

"Gabriel, I think," Rachel said. "I liked it before but," she tilted her head and looked down at the baby. "Now that I've met him, he doesn't look like a Gabriel."

"He doesn't look like anything right now," Puck pointed out. "Actually he kind of looks like a wrinkly old man." Rachel glared at him. "Fine, so Gabriel's out."

"I still don't understand what's so wrong with Beckett," Santana grunted.

"Besides the fact that I don't want my kid to grow up to be a douche?" Puck said. "It's not Jewish."

They were all quiet, thinking of names, as Sam started singing along with the glee club out in the hallway. "_Hey Jude, don't be afraid. You were made to go out and get her_," he stopped suddenly and looked up. "What about Jude?"

"What?" Rachel looked over at him.

"Jude," Sam said again. "It's a Jewish name, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is," Rachel nodded, thinking about it.

"My mom used to sing that to me," Sam said. "She didn't really know any lullabies but she loved the Beatles so she would sing it to me to get me to sleep. It's really the only thing I remember about her."

"I like it," Puck said and looked over to Rachel. "What do you think?"

"Jude," Rachel looked down and smiled. "You do kind of look like a Jude."

"Jude Puckerman," Santana said. "I could get used to that."

"Jude _Samuel_ Puckerman," Rachel said looking up at Sam.

"Rach, you don't have to—"

"You delivered my baby in a bathroom in the middle of a snowstorm," Rachel said. "I kind of do have to. More importantly, I want to." Sam smiled. "But only if you promise you'll stick around this time."

Sam nodded, "I promise."

The door squeaked open and Will stuck his head in. "The natives are getting restless out here," he told her. "We were hoping we could—"

"Of course, of course." Rachel sat up straighter as Sam pulled the blanket back over her legs.

Everyone crowded in to the bathroom as Rachel and Puck proudly showed off their son. "Everyone I want you to meet Jude Samuel Puckerman."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"And that brings us to tonight," Santana said to Jude who was finally asleep. "At three in the morning, in the bathroom, once again." She looked to her right and saw Puck and Rachel also fast asleep in the bathtub. They were probably going to hate themselves in the morning but it's not like she could carry them back to their bed. Santana stood up and carried Jude into the nursery, laying him in his crib. She really didn't have the energy to walk the 20 feet to her own apartment and figured if Rachel and Puck weren't going to be using their bed tonight, there was no reason she couldn't use it. That mattress was really like sleeping on a cloud stuffed with angel hair.

She walked through the apartment turning off the lights, locking the doors and windows and she must have made more noise than she thought she did because when she stepped into the bedroom, Puck was laying Rachel down on her side of the bed.

He'd managed to wake her up long enough to change her out of her evening gown and she sighed as her head hit the pillow. Santana moved to leave when Puck rolled his eyes. "Just get in," he said and she smiled brightly climbing in the bed next to Rachel as Puck changed out of his tux, turned off the light and climbed in on Rachel's other side. He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her up against his chest.

"Your story didn't have an ending," Rachel mumbled and Santana looked at her as she opened her eyes slightly.

"What?" Santana asked, confused.

"There was no ending," Rachel said.

"There was no ending because the story's not over yet." Santana pointed out.

"Make one up." Rachel smiled. "Every story needs an ending."

"Fine," Santana yawned. "And they all lived Happily Ever After."


End file.
